Maximum Pressure Act
A BILL
To impose additional sanctions with respect to Iran and modify other existing sanctions with respect to Iran, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Findings
Congress finds the following:
Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. It seeks “death to America” and the destruction of the state of Israel.
Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, its destabilizing behavior in the Middle East, its support of terrorism, its development of ballistic missiles, and its gross violations of human rights against its own people and the peoples of the Middle East are a threat to the national security of the United States, our allies, and international peace and security.
Iran and its proxies have planned, directed, sponsored, and funded terrorist plots throughout the world and on United States soil, including the 2011 attempted assassination of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States in Washington, DC, the 1994 bombing of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina in Buenos Aires, Argentina which killed over 85 people, and the 2012 bus bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria which killed five Israelis.
According to multiple American Directors of National Intelligence, Iran has the largest arsenal of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. Iran is also developing a robust cruise missile arsenal and advanced drone capability, which threaten American and allied air and missile defenses.
Iran tests, transfers, and even uses these systems in military operations abroad.
Iran has given ballistic missiles and associated technology to the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is also helping to traffic precision-guided munitions parts through the Middle East to upgrade the rocket forces of its chief proxy, Hezbollah.
Iran continues to hold Americans hostage, including Baquer and Siamak Namazi, Bob Levinson, and others.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated by former President Barack Obama was fatally flawed, did not eliminate Iran’s pathway to a nuclear weapons, and allowed Iran to retain and refine its nuclear weapons capability.
The verification and compliance mechanisms of the failed Iran nuclear deal were weak and insufficient.
The failed Iran nuclear agreement did nothing to address Iran’s continued development of ballistic and cruise missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads.
The failed Iran nuclear agreement provided Iran with over $100,000,000,000 in sanctions relief that was used by Iran to fuel proxy wars across the Middle East, including supporting the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and lining the pockets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hizballah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the Iranian backed terrorist militias in Iraq.
The failed Iran nuclear agreement lifted the United Nations arms embargo on Iran in October 2020, permitting Russia and China to engage in international arms sales with Iran. This also allows Iran to proliferate weapons across the world including to Venezuela and the Assad regime in Syria.
A central strategic flaw of the failed Iran nuclear deal was the idea that an agreement with Iran should solely focus on the issue of nuclear weapons alone, and not address non-nuclear issues.
On May 21, 2018, two weeks after President Trump withdrew from the failed Iran nuclear deal, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an address at The Heritage Foundation entitled “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy” where he announced that the Trump administration would “apply unprecedented financial pressure on the Iranian regime” and laid out twelve demands that would need to be met by Iran as part of any agreement related to the lifting of sanctions, and the re-establishment of diplomatic and commercial relations with Iran.
In his remarks on May 21, 2018, Pompeo stated that “Iran advanced its march across the Middle East during the JCPOA. Qasem Soleimani has been playing with house money that has become blood money. Wealth created by the West has fueled his campaigns. Strategically, the Obama administration made a bet that the deal would spur Iran to stop its rogue state actions and conform to international norms. That bet was a loser with massive repercussions for all of the people living in the Middle East.”.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s maximum pressure campaign on Iran denied the regime unprecedented revenue it would have otherwise spent on terrorism.
On December 31, 2019, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani admitted that Iran had lost $200 billion in revenue because of U.S. sanctions.
Iran’s oil minister Bijan Zanganeh on three separate occasions has likened U.S. sanctions under the maximum pressure campaign to having made the economic situation worse than the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988).
Iran’s 2019 defense budget cut defense spending by 28 percent, including a 17 percent cut to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
The Iranian rial lost around 70 percent of its value since the beginning of President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iran’s accessible foreign exchange reserves plunged to $4 billion in 2020 from $123 billion in 2018, or a decrease of over 96 percent.
Due to the maximum pressure campaign, Hezbollah terrorists and Iranian backed militias were denied resources and were forced to cut salaries of their fighters.
During the maximum pressure campaign, the United States was able to achieve the release of two hostages in Iran, Xiyue Wang and Michael White, without lifting sanctions or transferring cash to Iran.
Former Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffery stated on May 20th, 2020, “We have seen the Iranians pulling in some of their outlying activities and such in Syria because of, frankly, financial problems … in terms of the huge success of the Trump administration’s sanctions policies against Iran. It’s having a real effect in Syria.”.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly pledged to re-enter the failed Iran nuclear agreement and lift sanctions on Iran if Iran comes into compliance with the agreement.
On March 2, 2021, the Republican Study Committee’s Steering Committee formally adopted an official position supporting former President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign on Iran and pledged to work to fight against and work to reverse any and all sanctions relief for Iran unless Iran met all 12 demands laid out by former Secretary of State Pompeo.
On March 18, 2021, in an interview with BBC Persian, President Biden’s Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley stated “President Biden and all of his senior advisers have said this—the maximum pressure campaign has failed. It was a failure, a predicted failure. It hasn’t made life any better for the Iranian people; it hasn’t made life any better for the U.S. and the region; it hasn’t brought us any closer to this better deal that President Trump spoke about.”.
Sec. 3 Statement of policy
It is the policy of the United States as follows:
To deny Iran all paths to a nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles capability, including by permanently, verifiably and irreversibly eliminating its capabilities related to enrichment.
To roll back the totality of Iran’s malign influence and activities in the Middle East.
To support the human rights of the people of Iran.
To require that any new agreement with Iran should be submitted to the Senate for ratification as a treaty.
To impose maximum economic pressure on Iran, and keep all sanctions in place on Iran, until the regime fulfills the following 12 demands laid out by former Secretary of State Pompeo on May 21, 2018:
Iran must declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity.
Iran must stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, including closing its heavy water reactor.
Iran must also provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country.
Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems.
Iran must release all United States citizens as well as citizens of United States partners and allies, each of them detained on spurious charges.
Iran must end its support for terrorism, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilization and reintegration of Iranian backed militias.
Iran must end its military support for the Houthi terrorists and work towards a peaceful, political settlement in Yemen.
Iran must withdraw all forces under Iranian command throughout the entirety of Syria.
Iran must end support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the region and cease harboring senior al-Qaeda leaders.
Iran must end the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force’s support for terrorists around the world.
Iran must end its threatening behavior against its neighbors including its threats to destroy Israel and its firing of missiles at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and threats to international shipping and destructive cyberattacks.
Sec. 4 Severability
If any provision of this Act, or an amendment made by this Act, or the application of such provision or amendment to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this Act, the amendments made by this Act, and the application of such provision and amendments to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected.