Supporting Sanctions on Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. I thank the Senator.

I rise in support of these sanctions as well. Americans are perhaps tempted these days to take a step back from the problems in places in the Middle East and wonder why do we need to be active in resolving these thorny issues that often seem unsolvable. But yesterday in the Foreign Relations Committee, for example, we discussed Syrian legislation and debated how to address the growing repercussions of our policy of inaction as violence and instability spreads beyond Syria's borders. We cannot stand idly by and ignore the fallout from Syria. Americans need to remember that Iran is not just Israel's problem, it is ours as well.

Iran has been sponsoring terrorism and killing Americans for decades, most recently in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran has pursued an anti-American agenda, and its foreign policy has supported tyrants. It has undermined U.S. allies, and not just in the Middle East, through its terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and what they are doing now to defend Asad in Syria, but they have even done it in our own hemisphere.

On top of these issues, Iranian leaders have denied that the Holocaust even happened. They threaten Israel's very existence. So we do need to strengthen our sanctions. We need to actually follow through with them. That is what this resolution calls on the administration to do.

But we also have to ensure that our international partners do that as well. I am pleased that this resolution calls on the administration to fully implement the sanctions we have already passed and approved.

These sanctions have not changed Iran's calculus. The sanctions alone are not enough because, as we have seen, Iran has added centrifuges, so they continue to enrich uranium and they get closer to a nuclear capability. Similarly, the approach of this administration to talk to Iran, trying what our European partners have attempted to do in the past, has also been unsuccessful. For more than 10 years now we and the Europeans have tried to negotiate--all with no results. Iran has only gotten closer and closer to a nuclear capability.

We need a new approach. One avenue that has not been adequately explored is using perhaps our greatest weapon, what Ronald Reagan called ``the will and moral courage of free men and women.'' That means speaking out more forcefully about the human rights situation in Iran.

This regime is brutally oppressive. It represses its own people. Read the 2012 State Department report. It talks about disappearances; cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, including judicially sanctioned amputations and flogging; politically motivated violence and repression, such as beatings and rape; harsh and life-threatening conditions in detention and prison facilities. This is not even a comprehensive list of the abuses that exist in Iran.

Currently, there is an American pastor in Iran, Saeed Abedini, who is serving 8 years in prison because he is a Christian and practices Christianity.

Yesterday the Iranian Government disqualified two Presidential candidates. This will be a sham election in the coming months. As one State Department official put it to the Foreign Relations Committee, the Green Movement in Iran today is virtually nonexistent.

Instead of denigrating the freedom fighters in Iran who have suffered from inaction and lack of support, we need to be doing everything possible in the weeks to come to speak frankly about the lack of fundamental freedoms in Iran and reject the notion that this regime is legitimate or a credible negotiating partner.

We need to make clear that a crackdown against the Iranian people similar to the one that occurred in June of 2009 after a fraudulent Presidential election will have real consequences this time. We can't be everywhere. America can't be everywhere and do everything, but we can't outsource the solutions to all our problems either.

Israel faces an unprecedented security environment. I saw this firsthand during my recent visit to the Middle East in February. In every direction, Israel sees uncertainty and potential instability, from an all-out civil war on its northern border in Syria, to neighbors going through delicate political transitions in the wake of the Arab spring. But even with all these changes in its neighborhood, the greatest challenge facing Israel today is the threat of a nuclear Iran.

We need to stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support in its defense of its territory, its people, and its existence. We need to remind Tehran that the United States will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, as this resolution states, and that is why I am supporting it. I urge all of my colleagues to support it as well.

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