Welcoming Prime Minister Netanyahu

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. I thank the Senator from North Dakota and the Senator
from South Carolina.

As I look at where we are right now--first of all, our support for
Israel and our friendship with Israel--this has been a very strong
bipartisan issue, and it is an issue that rightly crosses party lines
because we share the same values, the relationship is very important,
we share technology, we share intelligence, and we share the concern
that we do not want the world's worst regime to obtain the world's most
destructive weapon, and that is the Iranian regime.

So I want to welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu to the Congress and
very much listen to what he has to say, because he comes to us in a
very important time where the administration is negotiating a potential
agreement with Iran. What we want most of all is that that agreement
will end Iran's nuclear program and be a real, verifiable, transparent
agreement, because a good agreement is a blessing, a bad agreement is a
nightmare. We have to hear from the Prime Minister of Israel, and I
look forward to hearing what he has to say today about what a good
agreement looks like.

But make no mistake about why we must stop the Iranian regime from
having a nuclear weapon. Because what they are doing around the world
right now--they are the largest State sponsor of terrorism in the
world. They have essentially destabilized the Government of Yemen
through their support of the Houthis there. They have been supporting
Hezbollah, a terrorist organization. They have been helping the Assad
regime murder its own people. They have been participating in cyber
attacks against our interests. This is a regime that has said they want
to wipe Israel off the map. I can understand--and I want to hear from
the Prime Minister of Israel--why the people of Israel would say
``never again'' when they hear those words.

But make no mistake, this is not just about the security of Israel;
this is about our security in the United States of America. They have
called us ``the great Satan,'' and this is an issue that represents a
threat to our core national security interests, to allow state-
sponsored terrorism to obtain the most destructive weapon in the world.
That is a danger we cannot afford in our country. It is one of concern.
It is important that we share with our strong ally, Israel. We need to
do everything we can in this Congress on a bipartisan basis to ensure
that never happens. That is why I am honored to be a sponsor of
bipartisan legislation that would give the Congress a say on this very
important issue, because we worked together to put together some of the
toughest sanctions that actually brought the Iranians to the
negotiating table. We should not lift the sanctions that have been put
together on a bipartisan basis without ensuring that this is a good
agreement that will end their nuclear program. When I say end it, I
don't mean end it for a decade, I mean end it permanently, because Iran
has been engaged in terrorist activity for longer than a decade. So
this is something we have to make sure is a transparent, verifiable
agreement.

I would also add we cannot have a situation where we have a splitup.
There has been a discussion about a year breakout period in this
agreement. I would like to hear what the Prime Minister thinks about
that, because my concern about that is this will lead to the situation
my colleague from South Carolina talked about, where we have a Sunni-
Shia nuclear arms race in the Middle East, where everyone seeks to
enrich uranium and to have a breakout period. That results in more
proliferation of nuclear weapons in a way that makes the world less
safe and endangers the United States of America.

So today we welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu. I very much look
forward to listening carefully to what he has to say. This is a
bipartisan issue. This is about the security of the United States of
America. This is obviously about our strong friendship with Israel. We
are aligned in ensuring that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and
ensuring that we work together to stop their support of terrorism
around the world, that we work together to end their ICBM program,
which the estimates are they could hit the east coast of the United
States of America by 2015 if they continue on this path. This is about
us, this is about our relationship with Israel, and I very much look
forward to hearing the Prime Minister today.

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