Political Quotes

“This is very basic. You cannot have a treaty with yourself. You must have a treaty with someone else. If that other person steps out of the treaty, you no longer have a treaty. Russia stepped out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The North Atlantic Council all came together and confirmed it. At the last NATO summit, every one of our allies confirmed it. The treaty is dead. To have a treaty, now, where the other side has stepped out and it is only us that is left and say, by statute, we are going to shackle ourselves so that we are going to stay there has no reflection on reality. Their violating the treaties aren't minor violations of the treaty. They have developed, tested, and deployed a weapon that violates the treaty. That means that they are once again deploying nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons for which we don't have a response. Our response doesn't necessarily have to be go field one. We can continue diplomacy. But legislation is not diplomacy. By legislation, we are going to say that the United States shall forever, as long as the legislation stays in, be tied to a treaty that the person on the other side already left and deployed missiles that are pointed at our assets, our military people, our men and women in uniform, and our allies. This is folly. Now, the Missile Defense Agency, by the way, issued a statement that says this affects our cooperation with Israel and our interceptor research with them. The Acting CHAIR.…”