On the recordSeptember 11, 2015
With all the rhetoric invoked around this agreement, I am reminded of what President Ronald Reagan--since his name was used just a few moments ago by the leader--told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in November of 1985 when they discussed the nuclear arms reduction. Go back to history and not have selective history. President Reagan said this: ``I bet the hard-liners in both our countries are bleeding when we shake hands.'' If that doesn't resonate, what will? And when the United States struck an agreement with the Soviet Union 2 years later to reduce the size of our Nation's nuclear arsenals, President Reagan received much criticism, including, as conservative columnist George Will put it, for accelerating--listen to this--``the moral disarmament of the West by elevating wishful thinking to the status of political philosophy.'' Almost 30 years later, we see that President Reagan's actions were not a capitulation to an entrenched enemy, but instead the underpinnings of a larger strategy that reduced the nuclear threat. This agreement should not be judged on its ability to curb Iran's hateful rhetoric or its role in destabilizing the Middle East, because that was never the goal of the agreement. No agreement can be perfect, but I am not convinced that a better deal--which exists only in the abstract at this point--will materialize if Congress were to reject the one before us. Rejecting this agreement, Mr.…
