On the recordNovember 13, 2014
I thank the Senator. I want to thank the Senator from South Carolina for his distinguished leadership on so many national security issues. I understand his frustration with our inability to actually take a vote on something that is such a commonsense measure. I also respect the committee process, as you could imagine, with the role I play and wished that our committee would actually take up this piece of legislation. I actually tried to offer something very similar to this in committee, and I actually did offer it, and the bill that was being offered, too, was taken down and no votes taken, because, again, of not wanting to deal with this issue. So I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for desiring to make something happen on this. As he mentioned, all of us want to ensure a successful negotiation. I cannot imagine there is a person in this body who doesn't want the negotiations between the P5+1 to end up with a good long-term conclusion. I agree based on the signals that are being sent. There are a lot of bipartisan concerns that have been expressed on this floor by people of both sides of the aisle, because people understand that this body, along with working with the House, put in place the sanctions that have actually gotten us to the place where we are in the negotiations. The initial agreement that was put in place was so much weaker than even the U.N. security resolutions that passed over and over and over relative to Iran.…
