Supporting Sanctions on Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I rise to express my strong support for this resolution and to thank our colleagues Senator Graham and Senator Menendez for their leadership and to thank them also for giving me the privilege of working with them over the last years on this vitally important national security issue. It is vital not just to the existence of Israel--it is an existential issue for Israel--but to the national security of the United States.

I believe Israel is a crucial ally of the United States and a successful democratic state in the Middle East. Recent turmoil in that region adds urgency and importance to ensuring that Israel remains a secure, stable, independent state.

This resolution is a reaffirmation of the readiness of the United States of America to assist Israel, our steadfast partner in the region, to thwart any measure of aggression made toward Israel by Iran.

It is also a reaffirmation of the policy long supported by this body--by our colleagues here, by all of us in a very personal and direct way--that we have the back of the President of the United States in his insisting on strong sanctions against Iran as long as it continues its development of a nuclear capability.

In the coming days, I will be introducing, along with my colleague the senior Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Hoeven, a resolution that calls for free and fair elections in Iran. Regardless of the outcome of these elections--and they are likely to be sham elections--we can't avoid the sad fact that Iran has maintained its course and commitment to nuclear development. The centrifuges are spinning, they are going, and more are brought online every day in this breakout for nuclear capacity. So we have to be wary of false signals of hope and remain vigilant in our constant effort to secure against Iran faithfully pursuing nuclear weapons.

Fruitless negotiations can't be our reason to call a halt to these sanctions. That can come only with compliance--verified compliance. We have to remain vigilant and remember that Iran has threatened to attack not only Israel but the United States. It has substantiated those words with attacks on our troops in Iraq and on American civilians visiting or living in Israel.

It is Israel who helps diffuse those threats from Hamas and Hezbollah and all who have targeted America. If Iran chooses to declare war on Israel, if it ignores the path of peace the international community has repeatedly laid down for it, they must know they do it at their peril.

The United States supports our strategic partner Israel, and that is why I support S. Res. 65, because it demonstrates our full, unyielding, unstinting support for Israel if the unthinkable and the avoidable happens.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

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