Political Quotes

“I want to take the next 15 or 20 minutes today to talk about the ongoing situation in Syria and the region surrounding that country. It is a part of the world that some folks might not be all that familiar with, so let's take a look at the area that I will be discussing today: Syria, the Mediterranean, with Greece up here. Just north of Syria, we have Turkey. To the southeast of Syria, we have Iraq. Further to the east of Iraq, we have Iran. To the south- southwest of Syria, we have Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. South of Jordan is Saudi Arabia. Over here we have Egypt, the Red Sea, and Georgia--not the State, the country. That gives us just a little bit of the lay of the land. The focus of my remarks today will be on Syria. Three years and 4 months ago this week, I stood here on the Senate floor in front of a map of Syria and spoke of the progress that was about to be made in that country in the battle to degrade and destroy ISIS. We are going to look at another map. It is pretty much the same area, blown up--Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. The area here in what I call a peach color is where ISIS was running the show or had undue influence. At this particular point in time, ISIS had been making undeniable progress in building what they called their caliphate, their country, their capital. Again, this is the area they covered at the height of their influence.…”