Florida Senator and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio slammed the media as “ridiculous” for “glowing” coverage of an Iran deal that gives them “equality with a world power, the United States of America” on Wednesday’s “America’s Newsroom” on the Fox News Channel.
Rubio said, “we have now made a third-rate autocracy equivalent to a world power, a threshold nuclear power. A country that can now, in about less than 5 years, begin to receive arms imports once again. And one of the leading in the sponsors of terrorism in the world will now have billions of dollars available to them to use for things like the sponsorship of terrorism. So our hope — and by the way, we read these documents, there’s still not a lot of detail about the inspections. Are inspectors going to be allowed to go in anywhere, at any time to look at what Iran is doing? So, my hope is that we’re going to be able to convince enough of our Democratic colleagues to join us in this effort, without them we can’t stop it.
He added, “This is an issue that has long-standing consequences. If Iran becomes a nuclear weapons power, as I anticipate they will, over the next ten years, everyone who supported it, or voted for it, or allowed it to go forward, will have to answer to history for that, including many of my Democratic colleagues, and most certainly this president.”
Rubio, in response to argument that the sanctions couldn’t have been increased because China and Russia wouldn’t have allowed it. Rubio said that argument is incorrect and “I don’t think the foreign policy of the United States should be determined by what Russia and China are willing to do. … The Iranians are building long-range, which aren’t even touched in this agreement. Why do you build intercontinental ballistic missiles? There’s only one reason you build them and that’s to put a nuclear warhead. And you know where they’re going to be aimed? They’re going to be aimed at the United States.”
Rubio concluded, “For him, this whole deal, you know what it is? It is an exhibit in his presidential library. That’s what he wants to be able to do, is say, ‘This is what I achieved, peace in our time, this big deal with Iran.’ Look at the press coverage of this issue. Some of it’s been glowing as some sort of historic deal. It’s ridiculous, a third-rate autocracy has now been given equality with a world power, the United States of America. They are now a nuclear threshold country on a deal signed with the United States and other global powers. That’s why they’re cheering in the streets in Tehran. That’s why they’re celebrating, you don’t see celebrations in America, you don’t see any celebrations in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, because they know this is a one-sided deal.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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