Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to discuss U.S. policy regarding Iran. We know that in 2009 the new Obama administration came into office at a time when the Iranian regime was racing to develop a nuclear weapon. The prospect of the Iranian regime with a nuclear weapon would present a substantial threat to America and to our allies. At the same time, Iran was engaged in a host of other malign activities, but the most urgent and significant threat was nuclear. In 2013, Iran was 2 to 3 months from being able to build a nuclear weapon. The Obama administration decided to use hard-nosed diplomacy resulting in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known by the acronym JCPOA. This agreement was entered into with a number of countries, three of them our allies--the United Kingdom, France and Germany. We also had two partner countries--countries with which we have a lot of tensions and conflict. We were partners with China and Russia. So this agreement stretched from one end of the world to the other. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action prevented Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon by, among other steps, authorizing some of the most intrusive inspections that have ever been put into place. This agreement, the JCPOA, did not cover several other nonnuclear malign activities that the Iranian regime was and is engaged in. The JCPOA isolated and largely solved the most dire threat, that of a nuclear- armed Iran in the near future.…”