Political Quotes

“Thank you. Mr. Speaker, we have heard on the floor that we shouldn't base our diplomacy on the Iranian political calendar--I agree--but we shouldn't base our diplomacy and our foreign policy based on our political calendar. Recently, we enacted the most effective, crippling economic sanctions against Iran--ever--and it was done by the hard work of the administration, supported by Congress, to be able to mobilize an unprecedented coalition of people who agreed with us that they wanted to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons and sending that signal. But sadly, you can forget about President-elect Rouhani. This weakens President Obama. The optics now are to pull the rug out from underneath the newly elected moderate candidate. He's not my guy, he's not yours, but of the choices, it was a signal by the Iranian people. Think about the future tools. Are you really going to be able to ratchet up these sanctions much more dramatically? Do you expect China and Japan are going to follow that path? And, if they work, what about the dislocations to the American economy and the global economy in moving this oil off the market? I think people ought to consider that. Ultimately, the only solution is a diplomatic solution to try and work this through. We're not going to go to war and nuclear bomb them. We are not going to occupy Iran. It's ironic.…”