Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I would welcome the opportunity to work with my colleague Senator Murphy on sanctions policy, sanctions policies that make sense, but I would say this. If this policy is good enough for CAATSA in Russia, why wouldn't it be good enough for Iran? The Senate has already passed CAATSA. I have used the exact language. I would also like to say this. If it is true that this administration is not waiving sanctions and is not entering an agreement, they should have no difficulty with this level of review. I don't believe that is the case. And I also would like to address the accusations, I should say, leveled against the policy in the last administration after the withdrawal of the JCPOA. Iran never stopped their nuclear program. Israel, in a very brave and courageous raid, proved that they were continuing on that path. As part of my prior job as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, it was my responsibility to get Japan to stop buying Iranian crude. I was successful at that after many rounds of negotiation. We cut Iran's fund flows down to a trickle. That starved Iran's ability to fund its proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah. In fact, it was widely reported in the media that Hamas and Hezbollah were going broke. That all changed when the policy of appeasement came back in 2021. By avoiding sanctions, by not enforcing sanctions, the estimates are as high as $80 billion of fresh illicit oil revenues that have entered Iran's coffers.…”