Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I actually oppose this amendment for reasons completely opposite of what the previous opposition speaker opposed them for. I believe that part of the solution to stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is to negotiate with them. The President is currently doing that as part of the Six Party Talks. Now, none of that's going to work without very, very aggressive economic sanctions. I'm very pleased in last year's bill we were able to put in aggressive economic sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran. We need those sanctions. Those sanctions are what has driven these talks. Unfortunately, I support just about everything in this amendment except for the part that requires bilateral negotiations. It would basically require us at this point to set up a separate set of negotiations apart from the Six Party Talks and would actually undermine the very negotiations that are going on right now. I think it's very well intentioned. I agree that negotiations have to be part of that. It's just, given the negotiations that are going on, requiring bilateral negotiations at this point would undermine that very effort. And, therefore, for very different reasons I oppose the amendment.”