Political Quotes

“First of all, let me thank Chairman Royce for offering this urgent and necessary bill, and Eliot Engel for his good cooperation on this important bill. The Iranian government is estimated to be a little more than a year away from developing nuclear weapons, an unprecedented and absolutely unacceptable threat. Iran's repeated threats to annihilate Israel are unconscionable and constitute a direct and public incitement to commit genocide in violation of article III of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei speaks of Israel as a cancerous tumor, calls for the annihilation and destruction of the Jewish state, and the leveling of Tel Aviv and Haifa. These are not idle threats. President- elect Rouhani, the past master of using negotiations as a cover to move Iran's nuclear program forward, is now being presented as a moderate, yet last year referred to Israel as the ``Great Zionist Satan.'' Mr. Speaker, this bill dramatically ramps up sanctions pushed so effectively by Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen last Congress not only to pressure Iran to negotiate, but also to mitigate Iran's emerging capability to launch the genocidal war against Israel it has been threatening for years. This is a bipartisan bill, and it sends a clear, unmistakable message to Iran that we mean business. Those loopholes need to be closed, and Iran needs to be told that we want the sanctions to work. This tightens those loopholes and moves us in that direction. {time} 1745”