◼ 7 noteworthy quotes from Tom Cotton's Senate speech on the Iran letter - Washington Examiner
1): "During the last four or five years the world has grown gravely darker…. We have steadily disarmed, partly with a sincere desire to give a lead to other countries, and partly through the severe financial pressure of the time. But a change must now be made. We must not continue longer on a course in which we alone are growing weaker while every other nation is growing stronger."
2): "Rather than confront our adversaries, our president apologizes for our supposed transgressions. The administration is harsh and unyielding to our friends, soothing and supplicating to our enemies. The president minimizes the threats we confront, in the face of territory seized, weapons of mass destruction used and proliferated, and innocents murdered."
3): "The president's suggestions, in other words, that the war on terror is over or ending are far from true. Indeed, the Director of National Intelligence recently testified that "when the final accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled." Yet the president won't even speak this enemy's name."
4): "I will simply note that the deal foreshadowed by the president—allowing Iran to have uranium-enrichment capabilities and accepting any expiration date on an agreement— to quote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 'doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb; it paves Iran's path to the bomb.'"
5): "What is to be done, then? Our experiment with retreat must end. This Congress must again recognize that our national security is the first priority of this government. Our national-security strategy must drive our military budget, rather than the budget setting our strategy. The military budget must reflect the threats we face, rather than the budget defining those threats."
6): "But the best way to avoid war is to be willing and prepared to fight a war in the first place. That's the alternative: military strength and moral confidence in the defense of America's national security. Our enemies and allies alike must know that aggressors will pay an unspeakable price for challenging the United States."
7): "I will now yield the floor, but I will never yield in the defense of America's national security at any time or on any front."