{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-sullivan-urges-biden-to-stand-up-to-iran-at-unga", "ICYMI: Sullivan Urges Biden to Stand Up to Iran at UNGA", "2024-09-23", "2024", "2024-09", "Republican", "Senate", "AK", "Dan Sullivan", "S001198", "www.sullivan.senate.gov", "sullivan", "https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases?PageNum_rs=10", "scraper", "WASHINGTON\u2014In an opinion published in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), condemned the Biden-Harris administration for abandoning the Trump administration\u2019s policies towards Iran, resulting in a more powerful Iran and a more dangerous world. Senator Sullivan urged President Biden to course correct this week during what will likely be the President\u2019s last major foreign policy speech. Tomorrow, President Biden is set to address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s hard to deny that the world is more dangerous today than when he [Biden] became president,\u201d Sen. Sullivan writes in the Wall Street Journal. \u201cThere are many reasons for this, but the single most important course correction Mr. Biden could make is on his Middle East policy. In his speech he should call on the U.N. to condemn and impose sanctions on the Iranian terrorist regime for acting as the architect of chaos throughout the Middle East and Ukraine. Mr. Biden should also denounce the antisemitism that has pervaded the U.N. for decades and call out the organization for insufficiently condemning Hamas\u2019s massacre of 1,200 Israelis. He should demand that the U.N. declare Iran-backed Hamas a terrorist organization. He also needs to denounce the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, some of whose employees participated in Hamas\u2019s Oct. 7 attacks. Unfortunately, none of this is likely to happen. Appeasing Iran has been a hallmark of the Biden-Harris administration, and as a result the terrorist leadership has become richer, more powerful and more menacing.\u201d\n\nSenator Sullivan has frequently warned of the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s weakness on Middle East policy and pushed for a return to Trump-era sanctions aimed at re-establishing deterrence against Iran and its terrorist proxies. His latest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal details many of those efforts. Click here or below to read the full opinion.\n\nOpinion: Biden\u2019s Last Opportunity to Stand Up to Iran\n\nBy: U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan\n\nSeptember 20, 2024\n\nOn Monday I will go to New York with a group of senators to meet with foreign leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. President Biden will likely give his last major foreign-policy speech on Tuesday, a final opportunity to correct course. It\u2019s hard to deny that the world is more dangerous today than when he became president. There are many reasons for this, but the single most important course correction Mr. Biden could make is on his Middle East policy.\n\nIn his speech he should call on the U.N. to condemn and impose sanctions on the Iranian terrorist regime for acting as the architect of chaos throughout the Middle East and Ukraine.\n\n. . .\n\nBefore Mr. Biden took office, under the Trump administration\u2019s sanctions, Iran\u2019s oil exports in 2020 were reduced to about 200,000 barrels a day from 2.7 million and its foreign reserves to roughly $4 billion from $122.5 billion. The Trump administration negotiated the Abraham Accords, the Middle East\u2019s first peace agreement in 26 years, which could put the region on a path to widespread peace.\n\nThe Biden-Harris administration chose not to enforce the Trump-era sanctions. As a result, Iran has been enriched with about $100 billion in oil revenue, with which Tehran funds, trains and equips the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah.\n\nIn a meeting with Mr. Biden last year, I raised the issue of reinstating Trump-era sanctions against Iran. He supported the idea and told me to work with Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser. It hasn\u2019t happened.\n\n\u2026\n\nThe Houthis, with intelligence from Iranian navy spy ships, have launched dozens of drones and missiles to sink U.S. Navy and commercial ships in the Red Sea. Senior military officials operating in the Middle East requested permission to sink these Iranian spy ships but were denied by senior administration officials. They argued that such actions would be \u201cescalatory.\u201d This is a case study in self-deterrence.\n\nThere is a precedent for the U.S. to sink Iranian warships that target our Navy. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan authorized Operation Praying Mantis in retaliation after Iran nearly sank a U.S. Navy ship in the Persian Gulf. By the end of the operation, our military sank several Iranian ships and destroyed two Iranian oil platforms. Tehran got the message.\n\nThe most outrageous example of appeasement has been the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s relative silence on the Iranian regime\u2019s atrocious human-rights record, particularly against women. When Iran\u2019s \u201cmorality police\u201d murdered 22-year-old Mahsa Amini two years ago for not properly wearing her hijab, tens of thousands of Iranians, mostly women, took to the streets. More than 22,000 people have been arrested and more than 530 put to death. I wrote Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging him to meet with Masih Alinejad, one of the courageous leaders of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. He refuses to do so.\n\n. . .\n\nThe administration\u2019s policy toward Iran has dangerous repercussions across the globe. When U.N. member nations refused to reinstate the multilateral sanctions on Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles, the White House didn\u2019t protest. Now Iran is sending missiles to Russia to use against Ukraine.\n\nThe Biden-Harris administration\u2019s appeasement has squandered America\u2019s progress against Iran. The Trump administration punished the regime with maximum sanctions, killed Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, and spearheaded the Abraham Accords. History has shown time and again that appeasement doesn\u2019t work and invites more aggression. We should learn from history.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:46:43Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-sullivan-urges-biden-to-stand-up-to-iran-at-unga"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.033399185165763, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}