Political Quotes

“I yield myself an additional minute. The answer, as far as I can discern from the opposition to the deal, is this: This is how the alternative would work. Congress rejects the deal. Congress, the administration, then, somehow goes out and persuades the rest of the world to maintain sanctions, even when we rejected an agreement adopted by the other major powers, and even when those other powers tell us explicitly that there will be no new negotiations. But somehow we maintain the sanctions regime under this theoretical alternative. And what? Iran gives up all enrichment and comes back to the table prepared to capitulate everything? That seems so fanciful, so far removed from the reality of the situation, that it is no surprise that the opposition devotes very little, if any, time to discussing a credible alternative, because, indeed, there is no credible alternative. So, again, this is why I think it is so important for us to focus on how we can strengthen the constraints in the agreement, mitigate the risks that we will face, and that is a much more constructive path forward than rejection of this, seeing Iran going back to spinning up its centrifuges, picking up where they left off at 20 percent enrichment and going beyond, picking up where they left off with 19,000 more centrifuges and thousands of kilos of uranium. Is that really the path we want to go down? I think not. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. {time} 1515”