Political Quotes

“First of all, no one has taken a more important role in our foreign policy and security issues than the Senator from South Carolina. I thank him for that. I know on my last trip to Afghanistan, he was there serving his Reserve duty. I thank the Senator for the many contributions to all of these debates. I want to say that I think, similar to many in this body, when the initial agreement was put forth and it had a 6-month extension on it, there was a lot of concern. What I am concerned about, and the Senator from South Carolina I think may share some of this, is that what we are going to end up with are a series of rolling interim agreements. What we have is Iran doing everything they can to evade sanctions that have been put in place. We have countries that see the opportunity possibly for Iran to come out from under being a rogue state. I am worried we are putting ourselves in a situation where we are losing all of the leverage Congress, working with the administration, but Congress led on in putting these sanctions in place. We are coming up on July 20. I was very disappointed that, in essence in March, the administration agreed to the fact that Iran would be able to have centrifuges to enrich uranium. It was something that, to me, at the beginning of a negotiation, to give one of the biggest things one can possibly give to a country such as Iran on the front end, put us in a very bad position. But here is my concern: It is July 17. This agreement ends on July 20.…”