Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez Comes Out Against Iran Deal: “If Iran Is To Acquire A Nuclear Bomb, It Will Not Have My Name On It”

From Legal Insurrection:

New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez announced his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal today in a speech at Seton Hall University. Menendez laid out his reasons why the deal not only was bad, but also worse than the alternatative. 

Hope, he said, is not a strategy. 

“Whether or not the supporters of the agreement admit it, this deal is based on ‘hope’– hope that when the nuclear sunset clause expires Iran will have succumbed to the benefits of commerce and global integration. Hope that the hardliners will have lost their power and the revolution will end its hegemonic goals. And hope that the regime will allow the Iranian people to decide their fate. 

“Hope is part of human nature, but unfortunately it is not a national security strategy.

“I know that, in many respects, it would be far easier to support this deal, as it would have been to vote for the war in Iraq at the time. But I didn’t choose the easier path then, and I’m not going to now. I know that the editorial pages that support the agreement would be far kinder, if I voted yes, but they largely also supported the agreement that brought us a nuclear North Korea.