Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, we all know that the prospect of an Iranian state armed with nuclear weapons is simply intolerable for the world. It poses an existential threat to our ally Israel. It would pose the threat of terrorism all over the Middle East under a nuclear umbrella, so we wouldn't be able to oppose what Iran was doing. It poses a threat of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It poses the threat that we cannot rule out that this regime would give a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group like al Qaeda to use we can only guess where. Finally, some people say, you know, we coexisted with a nuclear Soviet Union for 40 years, 50 years. We deterred them, deterrence works. Deterrence cannot work when you have a government that is religious in nature, many of whose elements are millenarian; that is, they believe that the final destruction of Israel even if it causes a nuclear war would bring on the return of the Hidden Imam more quickly. You cannot reason with a suicide bomber. You cannot deter a suicide bomber, which is in essence what parts of the Iranian Government are. So we must prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. We also must avoid the Hobson's choice of having a situation where the advisers come in to the President and say, Mr. President, here are your two choices: One, do nothing in Iran, who will have nuclear weapons in a couple of weeks; two, militarily attack Iran. We don't want that Hobson's choice.”