‘Iran Is An Outlaw Regime’ Cotton Says In Senate Speech

The United States faces many of the same issues that were present in the days before World War II, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Monday night.

Cotton gave his first Senate floor speech at the Capitol sounding themes of foreign policy and the threats facing the nation. Cotton, who serves on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, has been at the forefront in recent days over issues involving Iran.

Cotton, along with 46 other Republican senators, wrote a letter March 9 to Iranian leaders on the issue of nuclear weapons.

The letter stressed the Senate has a constitutional imperative on the issue, while Democrats have said the letter undercut negotiations between the U.S. and Iran on the issue.

In the speech, Cotton quoted former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the similarities between now and then.

“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. I wish I could take credit for those eloquent and ominous words, but I cannot. Winston Churchill sounded that warning in 1933, as Adolf Hitler had taken power in Germany,” Cotton said.

“Tragically, Great Britain and the West didn’t heed this warning, when they might have strangled that monster in his crib. Rather, they let the locusts continue to eat away at the common defense. The Axis powers grew stronger, and the West grew weaker, conciliating with and appeasing them, hoping their appetite for conquest and death might be sated. As we all know, however, that appetite only grew until it launched the most terrible war in human history.

“Today, perhaps more tragically because we ought to benefit from these lessons of history, the United States is again engaged in something of a grand experiment of the kind we saw in the 1930s. As then, military strength is seen in many quarters as the cause of military adventurism. Strength and confidence in the defense of our interests, alliances, and liberty is seen not to deter aggression, but to provoke it.

“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.”

Cotton also spoke about the history between the United States and Iran.

“Recall, after all, what Iran already does without the bomb. Iran is an outlaw regime that has been killing Americans for 35 years, from Lebanon to Saudi Arabia to Iraq. Unsurprisingly, Iran is only growing bolder and more aggressive as America retreats from the Middle East. Ayatollah Khamenei continues to call for Israel’s elimination. Iranian-backed Shiite militias now control much of Iraq, led by Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, a man with the blood of hundreds of American soldiers on his hands,” Cotton said. “Iran continues to prop up Basher al-Assad’s outlaw regime in Syria. Iranian-aligned Shiite militants recently seized Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Hezbollah remains Iran’s cat’s paw in Lebanon. Put simply, Iran dominates or controls five capitals in its drive for regional hegemony. Moreover, Iran has rapidly increased the size and capability of its ballistic-missile arsenal, recently launching a new satellite. Just two weeks ago, Iran blew up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier in naval exercises — and publicized it with great fanfare.”

“Iran does all these things without the bomb. Just imagine what it will do with the bomb. And imagine a United States, further down the road of appeasement, largely defenseless against this tyranny.”

Cotton said the United States “should never take our allies for granted, but we also shouldn’t take for granted the vast influence our security guarantees give us with our allies’ behavior.”

Cotton also said he believes a lack of leadership has emboldened other players on the world stage.

“A better question to ask is, ‘Can we afford to continue our experiment in retreat?’ I suggest we cannot. Imagine a world in which we continue our current trajectory, where America remains in retreat and our military loses even more of its edge. What would such a world look like,” Cotton said. “It’s not a pretty picture. Russia might soon possess the entire north shore of the Black Sea. An emboldened Putin, sensing Western weakness for what it is, could be tempted to replay his Ukraine playbook in Estonia or Latvia, forcing NATO into war or obsolescence. China could escalate its island conflicts in the East and South China Seas. Without an adequate American response — or worse, with China denying American forces access to those seas — countries as diverse as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines would feel compelled to conciliate or confront, neither helpful to regional stability.”

Cotton also said the history of the past may be a lesson for the future.

“I began with Churchill’s prescient words from 1933. Alas, the West did not take his advice, did not rearm and prepare to deter Nazi Germany. The predictable result was the German remilitarization of the Rhineland and the long march to war. Now, let me close with his regretful words from 1936: ‘The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.’”