Political Quotes

“Mr. President, on another note, I listened with great interest as the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senator from Rhode Island, spoke about Iran and the challenges we face there. I agree with some and maybe even most of what he had to say. The American people were appalled when, last week, Iran took down an unmanned American aircraft over international waters. As the Senator said, ordinarily, Iran operates by proxies or by third parties, whether it is the Shia militia in Iraq or Hezbollah or one of their other terrorist proxies like those operating in Yemen, the Houthis. But Iran escalated its attack against the United States by shooting an unmanned drone flying over international waters, so it was quite a shocking move from that standpoint, even from a nation as untethered as Iran. Iran has been engaged in a 30-year conflict with the United States, one that has resulted in the death of U.S. servicemembers in Iraq and elsewhere--victims of explosively formed penetrators and other training that the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, their Quds Force, their Special Operations force--the training they gave to terrorists operating in Iraq to kill Americans. Then there is the periodic harassment of American and other international vessels operating in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow strait through which a huge portion of the world's energy supplies flow.…”