COTTON PRAISES move, plans to help pass bill aimed at “fixing the deal.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton has been a leading critic of the nuclear agreement with Iran, working from almost the moment he took office to derail a deal he viewed as heavily flawed.

The Republican from Dardanelle even wrote an open letter, on March 9, 2015, to the “Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” informing them that “the next president could revoke” any deal “with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”

On Friday, President Barack Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, said he would decertify Iranian compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Shortly before the announcement, Cotton said in a statement that he and U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker would introduce legislation aimed at “fixing the Iran deal.”

In a written statement later in the day, Cotton praised Trump for making “the right decision.”

“The current deal paves the way to a nuclear weapon for Iran, so Congress and the President must seize this opportunity to fix the deal’s grievous flaws,” he said. “The Iran deal disfigured our wider policy toward Iran, because President Obama was so scared that Iran would scuttle the deal that he pulled his punches on other issues. By not certifying it, President Trump has given Iran a wake-up call and redirected our Iran policy toward advancing U.S. interests and those of our allies.”

Cotton had barely been in the Senate for two months when he drafted the letter to Iranian leaders, sending it via Twitter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In addition to the state’s junior senator, 46 other Republican senators signed the open letter.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, labeled Cotton’s letter “a propaganda ploy,” saying the interjection by Republican lawmakers was “unprecedented in diplomatic history.”

Corker, who recently announced that he won’t seek re-election, was one of a handful of Republican senators who declined to add their signatures.

Now Cotton and Corker say that they’re working to craft legislation to address what they describe as major flaws in the existing agreement.

“Lawmakers need to do now what we couldn’t do two years ago: unite around an Iran strategy that truly stops Iran’s nuclear weapons program and empowers the United States and our allies to combat the full spectrum of Iran’s imperial aggression,” Cotton said in the earlier written statement. “The legislation Senator Corker and I have been working on with the administration will address the major flaws in the original Iran deal: the sunset clauses, the weak inspections regime, and the failure to restrict Iran’s development of advanced centrifuges. And it will create time and leverage for firm diplomacy — together with our allies — to work and neutralize the threat of a nuclear Iran permanently.”

Corker and Trump have clashed recently. The Tennessee Republican said Trump may be putting the nation “on the path to World War III.”

Trump responded on Twitter, pointing out the 5 foot, 7 inch senator’s height in saying that “Liddle Bob” is “largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal!” (Corker, like Cotton, had actually opposed the agreement.)

The president’s relationship with the 6 foot, 5 inch Cotton is more cordial. Trump and the senator had a private meeting at the White House last week; one of the topics was believed to be Iran, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

“Obviously, Sen. Cotton has been somebody the president has worked with regularly since taking office,” Sanders told reporters, adding, “We’re going to continue to do that.”