House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., blasted the Obama administration's decision on Tuesday to issue an export license allowing Airbus to sell more than 100 aircraft to Iran Air, in defiance of GOP warnings that Iran has a history of using these aircraft for military purposes.
"Only weeks after Iran was found to have violated the nuclear agreement, the Obama administration is yet again giving the Ayatollah more concessions," McCarthy said in response to the decision.
House Republicans voted to ban these sales last week, but that was a symbolic gesture given the certainty that Obama would veto the bill if it ever reached his desk. There were reports that the administration was considering the licensing in order to "fortify" the Iran nuclear deal before President-elect Trump takes office, a complaint Republicans echoed in condemning the sale.
"It is clear that the Obama Administration is going to rush through as many provisions as possible pertaining to the Iran deal prior toPresident Obama's last day in office," Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., the lead sponsor the aircraft sales ban, said in response to Tuesday's news. "Even the president's own State Department has declared Iran 'the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism,' and the Treasury Department has designated Iran as 'a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern.' The steps taken today by the Treasury Department endanger our men and women in uniform as well as those of our allies."
McCarthy cited the licensing — and news that Iran recently stockpiled more of a particular nuclear material than is permissible under the nuclear deal — as a justification for considering withdrawal from the deal. "The president's executive agreement with Iran is on unstable ground, and actions like this underscore the need for the upcoming Trump administration to review all options when it comes to this failed deal," he said.
After emphasizing that "there's no final push" or "concerted effort" by the Obama administration to limit Trump's options, Kirby suggested that the next president's hands are tied already.
"Without speaking to what the next administration might or might not do, it's important to remember that this isn't a bilateral agreement between the United States and Iran," Kirby said. "It is a multilateral international agreement and that character of it, the truly international scope of it, I think, needs to be taken into account."
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