On the recordFebruary 11, 2010
This is a day of history in Tehran, and I hope we can make it a day of history in the U.S. Congress because if this legislation which Senator McCain and I and a bipartisan group of other Senators introduce is adopted, it will be the first time we impose economic sanctions on Iranian leaders for the human rights abuses of their own people. We have come full circle. We have obviously been concerned about Iran's sponsorship of terrorism. It is still the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism in the world, according to the State Department. Second, its nuclear weapons program menaces its neighbors in the world. But as so often happens with countries that threaten their neighbors in the world, that have no regard for human life, ultimately we come back to their core. And the core of the Iranian regime is rotten. It is rotten because it treats its own people not just with disrespect but with brutality. Look at the television. Look at YouTube. Read the Internet, the text messages about what is happening on the streets of Iran as we speak today: remarkable demonstrations of courage by the people coming out to protest, to simply ask for their freedom, and unbelievable brutality against them for doing nothing more than asking for their universal human rights.
