Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Friday presented a tough approach in dealing with Iran, detailing a three-point plan that he will implement if elected president, during a speech hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative in New York City Friday morning.
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The Florida senator also attacked the recent Iran nuclear deal – and said the policies on Cuba and Iran are evidence of what he called “every flawed strategic, moral and economic notion” driving President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. He has ensured the regime will receive worldwide legitimacy and a substantial economic boost to benefit its repression of the Cuban people, which has only increased since the President announced his new policy. In the speech, he pledges to “roll back” what he termed Obama’s “concessions” to Cuba and the recently completed nuclear deal with Iran and says he will “repair the damage done to America’s standing in the Middle East”.
If elected president, Rubio said he would begin the process of ending any Iran deal approved by the Obama administration.
But the Cuban-American Rubio looked to make a name for himself with his policy on Cuba, speaking passionately on the balance between dialogue and domestic security.
Roughly 65 percent of respondents said sanctions against Cuba should be kept in place “pending progress on human rights and elections” and 68 percent said the country should remain on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Rubio, who opposes the deal, will say that a President Rubio would reimpose sanctions on Iran and ask Congress to pass “crushing new measures that target human rights abusers and Iran’s leaders involved in financing and overseeing Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism”.
The Obama administration has said it is normalizing ties with Cuba after more than 50 years of hostility failed to shake the communist government’s hold on power.
That Iran can develop nuclear weapons under the deal, making these two scenarios plausible, is clear; the only question is when.
Mr. Rubio promised to invite “Cuban dissidents, Iranian dissidents, Chinese dissidents, and freedom fighters from around the world” to his inauguration.
One of the foremost authorities on this issue is Republican presidential candidate, Sen.
“I will give the mullahs a choice: either you have an economy or you have a nuclear program, but you can not have both“, he says.
“When it comes to the challenges posed by Iran and Cuba, our task is straightforward, we must prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon and we must guarantee that the United States stands on the side of the Cuban people, not the side of their oppressors.”
Even with Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House, it will be hard for opponents of the deal to override Mr. Obama’s veto, assuming they vote to disapprove of the deal.
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“Iran has spent decades evading global sanctions, promoting terror in the region, and violently oppressing its own people”, said Sires (D-8th Dist.).
