Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, look, everybody has got an opinion about Iran. I get it. That is good. Americans are entitled to have an opinion. Every Member of the Senate has an opinion. Every Member of the House has an opinion. Obviously, the President has an opinion. The Pope has an opinion. Everybody has an opinion, and that is a good thing.

I can tell you why I think we did the right thing by going into Iran. First of all, the people of Iran are wonderful people. I am not talking about the people; I am talking about their government, which is run by their Supreme Leader. Now, the old Supreme Leader is now as dead as Woodrow Wilson, but they have a new Supreme Leader. It is the son of the old Supreme Leader, and he is just as crazy as his daddy was.

The people in charge in Iran--they are a theocracy. That means, unlike America, where we separate church and state, in there, they marry their church to their state. And the Supreme Leader, who rules Iran, thinks that he is speaking for God. He really thinks God is telling him to do all this stuff. The Supreme Leader believes that if you disagree with his version of his religion, you should die.

They hate America, and they hate Israel. They do. They want to kill us and hurt us the entire time we are dying.

They are trying to get a nuclear weapon. This isn't like China having a nuclear weapon or Russia or India or Pakistan.

Let me ask you a question. Would you give Charles Manson a nuclear weapon? That is what we are talking about here. Charles Manson is also as dead as Woodrow Wilson. But would you give a Charles Manson-type person a nuclear weapon? No. That is why we can't let the Supreme Leader and his minions in Iran have them.

Now, how do we stop them? Well, this is what Iran was up to. First of all, President Trump and Israel went in in June and bombed the living daylights out of their nuclear facilities, destroyed them substantially.

To develop a nuclear weapon, you have to have fissile material, enriched uranium. We hit their production facilities so hard that a lot of that uranium is buried underneath the ground, but it is still there, OK. We bombed the hell out of it, and we set them way back in terms of their nuclear ability, but it still exists.

We received intelligence saying that Iran has started to take some baby steps to restart their nuclear program that we bombed to hell and back last June. But that is not really why we went in. We also received intelligence that said Iran has a new game plan. The Supreme Leader-- nutty as a fruitcake--the Supreme Leader has decided--here is his game plan--he is going to double and triple missile production.

Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, also drones--they were producing those things at anywhere from 200 to 600 a month, maybe more, and the Supreme Leader was going to stockpile all these new missiles and these new drones, and then he was going to turn to America and Israel and the rest of the world and say: I am restarting the nuclear program. You can bomb me, you can bomb us if you want to, but we have got all these missiles, and some of these missiles can reach Berlin and Paris and London and Turkiye, and we are going to use them. The first thing we are going to do is destroy the Middle East. We don't care. We are Charles Manson. We are going to destroy the Middle East, and then we are going to start on anybody else that we are mad at.

We couldn't let that happen. We couldn't. So Israel and the President attacked. Now, whether you think it was a good idea or a bad idea, that is up to you. I can tell you the effect of it, though, because this-- the media won't report it, but this is undeniable. We hit Iran so hard, they are coughing up bones. The public sector but also the private sector today in Iran--it doesn't give me any joy to say this. We had no choice. I don't know how they are standing. They are held together with duct tape and spit.

Israel and America ran 21,000 bombing runs. We bombed seaports, airports, the electrical grid, railroads, the petrochemical industry, the farm industry, their steel industry.

Six out of ten Iranians of adult age don't have a job and don't have any prospect of getting a job. Many parts of the country don't even have electricity.

We knocked out two-thirds of the Supreme Leader's missile launchers. Does he still have some left? Yeah. They are buried underground. He has to dig them out. You probably saw pictures on TV of the bulldozers. We think we have knocked out half of their cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. We are not sure how many drones.

They don't have an air force anymore in Iran. They don't have a navy either. They still have some small boats that the Revolutionary Guard, which is part of their military, runs, but they don't have a navy. We sunk all their ships. We attacked virtually every single building we know of which is run by the Revolutionary Guard, which is part of their military.

I don't think the American people, because the press hasn't reported it, have a full appreciation for the damage that we did and had to do. I have seen estimates as high as a trillion dollars for them to rebuild.

I know the press glibly reports: Oh, you know, China and Russia will help them build back. What is the point of the war?

Well, the point of the war: They are not going to have a nuclear weapon anytime soon. Charles Manson may be able to find a knife, but he is not going to have a nuclear weapon.

And in order to rebuild Iran, it is going to take 20 to 25 years. And I don't know if we will be able to recover all of the enriched uranium. Some of my Democratic colleagues and some of our colleagues in the media are saying: It is a failure because you didn't get their enriched uranium.

I never figured we would get it.

And a lot of my colleagues are saying: Well, it is a failure because you didn't effect regime change; that nutjobs are still in charge.

That is true. We can't dictate regime change. That is up to the Iranian people. The only way we can dictate regime change is sending in troops, and I don't want to do that.

But the fact of the matter is that if you think the theocracy run by the Government of Iran--the Charlie Mansons--who is dangerous to the world--and I do--then the world is a much safer place today, and that is just a fact. That is a fact.

It is going to be a long time before Charlie Manson can rebuild, and it is going be a hell of a long time before the new Supreme Leader is going to get a nuclear weapon.

Third and final point. I don't know whether I will do this, but I will just do it. I don't hate anybody. I have said that before standing here, I don't. I do not. When I pray, I pray. God, don't let me hate because it is hard up here. It is not worth it.

But if I had a short list of people that I would consider hating, Congressman Eric Swalwell would be on it. He has undermined the confidence of the American people in this body.

Here is my impression of Congressman Eric Swalwell eating an ice cream cone.

You know why I do that? Life is hard, but it is harder when you are stupid. And if you are going to be stupid, by God, you better be tough. This is no country for creepy old men, and Congressman Swalwell, he is about to find that out. Karma may be slow, but it is almost always on time.

I yield to my friend Senator Kelly.

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