"A combination of factors led the Secretary to determine that the situation constituted an emergency and prompted him to make the Certification, including the significant increase in the intelligence threat streams related to Iran. ... Iran is a malign actor and the leading state sponsor of terrorism. It poses conventional and asymmetric threats to our partners in the Gulf, and to U.S. equities in the region and beyond," Cooper said in prepared testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"Our adversaries, including Russia and China, have adopted deliberate, long-term strategies of trying to disrupt our partnerships by seeking to replace the United States as a credible supplier of choice. We simply cannot allow openings that our adversaries will exploit to disrupt partnerships, to reduce our regional influence, to impact our defence industrial base, and to spread chaos," he wrote.
Cooper is scheduled to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
The senators said the manner in which the Trump administration has moved forward with the arms sales is unprecedented and at odds with long-standing practice and cooperation between Congress and the executive branch.