Senate also seeking to force Iran to pay terror victims before sanctions relief

In an earlier post, I reported that Representative Patrick Meehan (R-Pa) has introduced legislation that would force Iran to pay $43 billion in compensation to American terror victims as a condition to obtaining sanctions relief. Now, a similar bill has been introduced in the Senate.

Sens. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) on Tuesday unveiled a bill that would prevent the Obama administration from lifting economic sanctions on Tehran until these U.S. terrorist victims are paid for the crimes committed by Iranian-funded terrorist proxy groups, such as Hezbollah, according to a copy of the legislation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

“Iran-sponsored terrorists have killed more Americans than the Islamic State,” Kirk told the Free Beacon. “Families of Americans killed by Iranian-backed terrorism have used U.S. laws to take Iran to court and lawfully win approximately $43.5 billion in unsatisfied damages, so if the United States fails to ensure Iran fully pays these judgments before Iranian terror financiers get over $100 billion in sanctions relief, we risk emboldening Iran and other state sponsors of terror to continue targeting and killing more Americans.”

Iran has been held legally liable by U.S. courts for the murder of scores of Americans, according to official government estimates.

Iranian-backed terrorist groups, for example, have killed more than 700 Americans, including at least 290 in Lebanon over the past several decades. This accounts for the 241 U.S. service members murdered during the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, which Iran sponsored.

Attacks by Iran and its terrorist proxies additionally have killed at least 500 Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2000, according to intelligence officials.

U.S. courts have awarded the victims and their families more $46 billion in damages as a result of Iran’s terrorism, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Around $43.5 billion of this has yet to be paid by Iran.

I hope that this time, we at least get to a vote in the Senate. What happened with the nuclear sellout was disgraceful, but at least there were no Americans who were directly and immediately affected by it. This could be worse. Let's at least make Obama feel the pain of exercising his veto.