GOP slams 'bad' Iran deal

The Iran nuclear agreement has a "litany of flaws" that should invoke serious concerns, according to the Republican weekly address.

West Virginia Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito said that Congress has carefully examined the deal and she was dismayed that a small minority in the Senate prevented a bipartisan majority from rejecting it.

"This is a deal that fails to meet even the administration's own objectives," said Capito in the address released Saturday.

The deal, which the Obama administration negotiated directly with Iran and the P5+1 nations of Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, would lift economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for assurances that it had scaled back its nuclear program.

"The president has said sanctions will go back into effect if Iran violates this agreement, but let's be clear: reversing course will be next to impossible," Capito said.

Critics of the deal charge that once the economic sanctions against Iran are removed, it will be impossible to reimpose them because it is unlikely that the other P5+1 nations will agree to do so.

Capito also said that Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. "It's supreme leader said last week that he believes Israel will no longer exist in 25 years," Capito said.

The forceful address comes as 42 senators have stymied Republican efforts to disapprove of the Iran deal.

Capito said that those senators even opposed an amendment from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that would lift the agreement until Iran recognizes Israel's right to exist. The amendment was viewed as the GOP's last gasp to prevent the deal, according to a report from CNN.

Capito closed by saying that Obama negotiated the deal from a position of capitulation and not one of strength.

"Americans were left with a bad deal," she said.

The White House has said the deal is the best way to prevent a nuclear Iran.

"Consider what happens in a world without this deal," according to a transcript of President Obama's July speech announcing the deal. "Without this deal there is no scenario where the world joins us in sanctioning Iran until it completely dismantles its nuclear program. Nothing we know about the Iranian government suggests that it would simply capitulate under that kind of pressure."

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