Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President. A President of the United States once said of his Nation's enemy that we cannot ``wish away the differences between our two societies and our philosophies, but we should always remember that we do have common interests and the foremost among them is to avoid war.'' In pursuing that cause, he said: We will be prepared to protect our interests and those of our friends and allies, but we want more than deterrents. We seek genuine cooperation. We seek progress for peace. It was President Reagan who seized the opportunity during the Cold War and President George H. W. Bush who carried it forward. Together they achieved commitments from the United States and the Soviet Union, enemies through and through, to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons, bringing us ever closer to a world free of the threat of nuclear annihilation. It ingrained in us a tradition of pragmatism--the idea that even with countries we deeply distrust and whose behavior we abhor, we cannot ignore the opportunity to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Joint Comprehension Plan of Action that the United States negotiated with Iran and the other members of the P5+1 preserves that tradition, to ``seek progress for peace.'' This deal is not perfect, as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee so ably explained. We had to make concessions, and that is because it was negotiated between sovereign countries pursuing diplomacy and not unconditional surrender.…”