Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I would like to be recognized to make some comments about the conflict we are watching unfold on our television between Iran, Israel, and now the United States.

Someone asked me: What is this talk all about?

I think a good title would be: ``What is this all about?''

To the American people, what is this all about? Let me tell you what it is all about. It is all about religion.

A fanatical string of Shi'ism is now in charge of Iran, and they have three goals: to purify Islam--about 80 percent of Islam is Sunni; Saudi Arabia is the center of that part of the religion--to purify Islam in the image of the Ayatollah, to destroy the Jewish State, to drive us out of the Mideast because we are infidels.

This is not a democracy. It is a theocracy. If you have got any time on your hands, go on the internet and check out the theological bases of this regime. You would understand why Israel has to get this right as well as we do.

But it was not always that way. Iran is not inherently a radical group of people, a radical place. As a matter of fact, it is a very cultured place. It used to be one of the real ``Pearls of the Middle East.''

Before 1979, Iran shared intelligence, had economic ties, and military cooperation with Israel and the United States. This is from 1950, where Ben-Gurion--the first President of Israel--is talking to an Iranian diplomat in Israel. Iran had a very vibrant Jewish population. So it has not always been this way.

So what happened? They had a revolution. In 1979 to 1981, there was an uprising in Iran that led to the installing of the Ayatollah as the leader of Iran, the first Ayatollah Khomeini. Now we are on the second one, Khamenei.

What is this thing all about? These are students pouring over the U.S. Embassy. Our Embassy personnel--50 American hostages--were held for 444 days by these nutjobs. They were subjected to intense physical and psychological torture throughout their captivity, such as mob executions, beatings, solitary confinement, and very bad living conditions. This is what they did when they took over. They came after us, held our people hostage, and treated us very brutally.

In 1984, the United States made Iran a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law because of the way the Iranian regime, under the Ayatollah, was conducting himself. They were wreaking havoc throughout the region, and they were doing things against Israel and the United States that justified their designation in 1984 as a state sponsor of terrorism. And that has not changed.

Why are they a state sponsor of terrorism? Because they are terrorists, and they support terrorists.

Hezbollah--$700 million, we project, was given to Iran by Hezbollah. It is almost their entire budget. They are a terrorist group, mainly in Lebanon, of the Shia branch of the tree.

Hamas, who conducted the October 7 attack against Israel--Israel projects that 93 percent of Hamas's military budget came from Iran.

We have the Houthis. All of their missiles and rockets came from Iran.

We have got Shiite groups in Iraq funded by Iran.

Why are they a state sponsor of terrorism? Because they sponsor terrorism all over the world, and they did it with petrodollars from the Iran nuclear deal and other sources of revenue, which was a really bad idea. That is why Trump pulled out.

Here is the reporting over the period here:

Hamas-Iran alliance: Captured documents expose decades-long terror funding.

When Israel began to liberate Gaza from Hamas and drive out Hamas terrorists, they found a treasure trove of documents showing the history between Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran--suitcases stuffed with cash, U.S. flow of funds to Yemen to help the Houthis.

What else have they done other than funding terrorist groups? They have threatened to kill American officials: President Trump, Brian Hook, General McKenzie, Robert O'Brien, Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. All these people were involved in the Soleimani attack.

Why did we go after Soleimani? Because he was the leader of the more radical elements of their military that had been targeting Americans and he was planning to attack our forces in Iraq and Trump took him out: in 1983, the Beirut barracks bombing, Hezbollah, supported by Iran; Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, a terrorist group supported by Iran.

That is why they are terrorists. They have been coming after our interests. They have attacked our shipping in the Red Sea, the Houthis have. They couldn't fire one missile without Iranian support because that is where all their rockets come from.

Some cast of characters here. The recent new President was sworn in, in Iran. During the swearing-in of the Iranian President, the crowd started chanting: ``Death to America,'' ``Death to America'' during the swearing-in of the new President not long ago, July 30, 2024. It is not quite a year ago.

People wonder what they are up to. Let me tell you what they are up to. They are up to enacting a religious agenda that has no place for anybody but them. If you are a Christian, they want to destroy your faith. If you are Jewish, they want to wipe you off the planet. And if you are a Muslim and you don't agree with them, which most don't, they want to take over the entire faith and make you bend a knee to their view. These people are religious fanatics.

What is this all about? Religion. Do you want any of these people to have a nuclear weapon? I don't. They are religious Nazis.

Are there any telltale signs that may tell us what they are up to? Do you really have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this out? This is a missile in Iran. In Hebrew, it says: ``Death to Israel.'' This is the freaking missile they took a photo of in Hebrew that said ``Death to Israel.'' I wonder what they want to do with that missile.

If you are confused about this regime, you should not be allowed to drive because you are a danger to yourself and others. If you think this is not our conflict, you have missed a lot. You have been like asleep at the switch since 1979. You don't know anything about these people. You are talking gibberish.

If you don't think this is our concern, look what they have done. They have attacked Americans. They have American blood on their hands. They are trying to build a nuclear bomb, and one of their targets is us. How do I know that? Because that is what they say.

Last July, they were chanting, ``Death to America'' while they were swearing in their President. We don't do that here. Why? Because we are not crazy. These people are crazy. The Iranian people are not, but the people ruling the place are fanatical religious Nazis. If you don't think it is our concern, you really have missed a lot. You need to study before you talk.

If that is not enough, the missile that says ``Death to Israel''-- let's see, when was this? Oh, 2015. ``Amid Nuke Talks, Ayatollah Says: `Death to America.' '' This is during negotiations that Obama had.

In 2022, they had 95 pounds of highly enriched uranium at 60 percent. Is there a commercial purpose for uranium enriched at 60 percent? No. In 2025, 3 years later, they have 900 pounds of this stuff. So, clearly, they are not stopping their enrichment program; they are accelerating it, and they are enriching it at a level that has no commercial purpose.

They actually have one reactor in Iran. The fuel for that reactor comes from Russia. They haven't taken 1 gram of their enrichment program to run the peaceful reactor they claim they want. To run a reactor, you need to enrich between 3\1/2\ and 5 percent, not 60. Weapons-grade enrichment is 90 percent; 60 to 90 is like walking across the street.

If you can't figure out what they have been up to, again, you should not be allowed to drive. They are trying to build nuclear weapons. They are making material consistent with a bomb, not a peaceful nuclear powerplant. They chant ``Death to America.'' They chant ``Death to Israel.'' They kill their own people. They are the largest sponsor of terrorism on the planet. They have been that way since 1979.

I wonder what they want to do.

The Ayatollah's nuclear ambitions have been spread and fed for decades now. I take him seriously.

Hitler wrote a book. Nobody believed he wanted to kill all the Jews. They should have. Hitler wrote a book about a master race. People should have taken him seriously. They wrote it off as just talk. They excused Hitler's provocative behavior, saying: He is just saying these things.

Well, we know that didn't work out too well. Last month was the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Nazi regime. One of the centerpieces of the Nazi regime was to kill the Jewish people. They put the Jewish people in concentration camps, gas chambers, and they tried to extinguish an entire race of people--our Jewish brothers and sisters--killing 6 million.

Just a few years ago, the Jewish people got back to the numbers before the war. Eighty years later, we are having a discussion about what should we do, as civilized people, regarding Iran. I will tell you what we should do. We should do something different than we did with Hitler--because if we do the same old thing, there goes Israel and, eventually, us.

So their nuclear ambitions are not to build peaceful nuclear powerplants and fuel them. Their enrichment program is designed to make bombs. They intend to use these bombs because they are religious fanatics.

Does anybody doubt that if Adolf Hitler had a bomb, he would have used it? If you doubt that the Ayatollah would use a bomb against the State of Israel, you don't understand his religion.

What drove Hitler: a sick, twisted, distorted view of the master race.

These people want a master religion, not a master race. They want to dominate the world religiously. That is what they are all about. They export terrorism in the name of religion. They support groups that want to take down secular regimes. They want a master religion like the Nazis wanted a master race.

And let me tell you what our friends in Israel are saying: Hell, no. Once is enough.

So what should Israel do? Here is what Israel should do. They should fight back.

To the American people: What would our country do if there was one missile shot into South Carolina or Alabama from a foreign power that killed our citizens? Everybody in South Carolina and Alabama would be wanting to end the terror and go after the people who did it, and it would be the entire Nation.

Why should we expect Israel to tolerate what we wouldn't tolerate? There have been over 1,000 missiles shot into Israel. Since their founding, people have been trying to kill them all. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis have one thing in common: They are all funded by Iran. All the weapons come from the Iranians.

What is this all about? Killing the Jews and, eventually, us and dominating the world religiously. If you think that is weird, then you need to get on the internet and listen to what they are doing. You need to watch their behavior. And they mean what they say. And don't be like the people in the thirties that got it wrong. Israel is not going to get it wrong the second time.

Donald Trump. God bless President Donald J. Trump. I am so glad he won. What has he tried to do? Make peace, not war. He gave the Ayatollah 60 days to find a peaceful settlement regarding their enrichment program. They could have nuclear power, but they can't enrich. There are 20 nations that have nuclear power that get the fuel for their reactors outside of their country. We would have done that for Iran. They were tapping him along. Then 61 days go by, and the rest is history.

They are not interested in peace. They are interested in fulfilling a religious agenda that has no place for us or the State of Israel.

Hitler didn't want peace. There was not a part of a country you could give him to stop him from enacting his sick and twisted agenda. He didn't want German-speaking populations. He wanted the entire world to speak German. He wanted the entire world to fall under his Nazi regime. He was nuts. And it took a bunch of people from all over the world, particularly America, to destroy the Third Reich, and about 60 million people died because we got it wrong in the thirties--6 million Jews.

We are not going to let that happen again as long as I am around, the Presiding Officer, or President Trump and the people of Israel. We are not going to let that happen. We are going to stick with Israel because sticking with them is helping us. They are fighting the people that want to kill us as much as they want to kill all the Jews. Their fight, in my view, is our fight.

Operation Midnight Hammer: After day 60, all the negotiations went nowhere because the Iranians didn't want them to go anywhere. President Trump acted, and it was brilliant, it was bold, and it will live in history. To all those who took part in this, God bless you. We have the finest military on Earth. We proved that yet again. But you can have the best military, and if you don't have the right Commander in Chief, nothing happens. We got the right Commander in Chief married up with the strongest military in history, which will make us safer.

We are not looking to take over Iran. We are not looking to invade Iran. We are looking to make sure that the fanatics who run Iran can't hurt us and can't destroy our friends in Israel. And President Trump did something about it. He sent B-2s to Iran, and everybody thought: Well, what is that all about? Well, they missed the other B-2s that went to Iran and put a hurting on these three enrichment sites.

To the pilots, to the air crews, to everybody involved: Well done. I spent 30-something years in the Air Force, and I have never been more proud. Fly, fight, win.

What is next? They shot missiles at our airbase in Qatar--the Iranians did--today, about 16 or 19. One may have gotten through. I think they called us. But just remember what I said. They shot missiles at us today. They shot missiles at Israel last night.

The strikes a couple of days ago were designed to shut down the enrichment facilities used to make this weapons-grade uranium. I think we were substantially successful, and I have never been more proud of President Trump and our military. And I think we set back their military program substantially.

But here is what we didn't do: We didn't change their desire for a nuclear weapon. We changed the capability to make one. Here is my goal: to have people in charge of Iran who don't want a nuclear weapon to destroy Israel, who will not be the largest state sponsor of terrorism but live in peace with their neighbors and have a good relationship with the United States. That is what I want. And if you don't want that, there is something wrong with you.

How do you get that? Two ways: The religious fanatics reject their agenda; they change their behavior. Maybe that will happen. I don't know. Or you change the people and you replace the religious fanatics with people in Iran who do not want to destroy the world, who do not want to create a master religion, who want to live in peace. And I think that is the vast majority of the Iranians.

If we get this right, stick with Israel, stand up to this bully--this religious, fanatical regime--let Israel do what they need to do, then I think peace is coming.

The Presiding Officer and myself went to Saudi Arabia and Israel to talk about Saudi Arabia recognizing the Jewish State under certain conditions. Before the attack of October 7, we were very close to expanding the Abraham Accords to include a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel that, basically, would end the Arab-Israeli conflict--an amazing moment in history.

October 7 comes along: a vicious, brutal attack on Israel by Hamas, which is fully funded by Iran--raping women, killing children in front of their parents, and doing things that we really don't need to be talking about on the floor. That was designed to stop reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Israel because, for the Iranian fanatical regime, the worst nightmare is for the Arab world to make peace with Israel and move toward the light. These people want darkness for the world.

So what do we do now? Israel has had it. I talked to the Prime Minister yesterday before I went on television, and I asked him: What would you like me to tell America, Bibi?

He said: Three things. We are profoundly grateful to the American people for what you do to help the Jewish State. We couldn't be here without you. We are profoundly grateful to President Trump for his strong leadership.

He also wanted me to urge the people of Iran to seize the moment to end the nightmare you have been living.

And the third thing he wanted me to tell the American people is: Israel is not going to live this way anymore. They are not going to raise their children in bomb shelters. They are not going to have their life interrupted daily by ballistic missiles coming from religious Nazis who want to kill all the Jews like Hitler. They are not going to put up with that. Regime change is coming to Iran, one or two ways: The regime renounces what they have been doing since 1979 and changes course, or it is replaced.

To expect Israel to do anything else is offensive to me. You are asking Israel to accept as normal being attacked every day and every night by over 500 ballistic missiles? Over 24 Israeli citizens have been killed. The missiles going into Israel are designed to kill children. The attacks by the Israelis are designed to shut down the regime's nuclear capability. But the targets are changing. They are now going after the police force that keeps the Ayatollah in power, the intelligence services that scare people into submission, the prisons that house dissidents.

Israel has made a fateful decision to go to the heart of this regime, to take these religious Nazis down one way or the other--reject Nazism and the former religion or get new people.

And I am with them. I am with them to the bitter end. I am with them because being with them is in your own interest if you are an American. Being with them is in your own interest if you believe in religious tolerance. Being with Israel means you reject a regime that would take a 16-year-old girl off a bus and beat her to death because she didn't have a head cover. This is evil we are fighting. They are as evil as the Nazis.

Now, 80 years later, we are having a debate about what the Jewish people should do to a group that wants to kill them all? Really? We are debating among ourselves what is too much against a regime trying to build dozens of nuclear weapons to blow people off the planet they don't like or agree with? What kind of world are we living in? To all those who want to hold Israel back, what would you do if it were our country? Would you hold us back? If you tried to, we would run you over. We are not going to live this way as Americans.

So what is this all about? I am going to end where I began. It is about a fanatical regime that took over the country by force, that started out imprisoning Americans, has been trying to build nuclear bombs--multiple nuclear bombs--has been the largest state sponsor of terrorism since 1984, has American blood on its hands, has attacked Israel over and over and over again, has suppressed its own people. It is about a religious agenda.

Why do they do what they do? Religious, fanatical beliefs; a master religion for the world. And if you don't believe that, you have missed a lot. That is what they want, and the only way they are not going to get there is for somebody to stop them.

What did Hitler want? To take over the entire world and create a master race--anybody that didn't fit his definition of the right kind of person was in prison or killed.

The Ayatollah and his henchmen have that same view, but it is religiously driven.

So what happens in the next few days is going to determine the course of history for the State of Israel and the region for decades to come.

To our friends in Israel: Finish the job. Do what you have to do to bring about the regime change that will allow your children to sleep through the night.

To the American people: Wake up. Understand what we are fighting. The Ayatollah is not normal. These are not normal people. Stand with Israel. Standing with Israel, you are standing by your--you are helping your own self; you are helping your own families.

I will make a prediction. Israel is going to win, and this regime is going to fall. This regime is going to fall of its own weight. The people in Iran are going to have their chance, as the regime gets weakened, to rise up and take back their own lives.

I don't know when that day is coming, but it is coming soon. I believe that. I believe that the day of reckoning is here for the religious Nazis running Iran; that their terrorism is coming to an end; that it is going to be replaced by a region that moves together, where Sunnis and Shias and Israelis and all different groups--Christians-- work together to build economies for all those rights.

We live in a time of choosing. I choose to stand up to evil.
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