If Iran wants their money back and wants to be treated like a normal nation, they need to act like a normal nation.
Unless we get serious about addressing Iran's regional ambitions in places like Syria, then our allies are never going to be confident that we have a strategy for the region.
I spent several months patrolling Al Dora district in Baghdad in 2006 with the 101st Airborne. It's a tough neighborhood. There's a lot of militias operating there, including a lot of Shiite militias, which are backed by Iran.
My heart goes out, as does every American, when I see the videotape of Jason Rezaian and Amir Hekmati and Saeed Abedini coming back to their families.
It's clearly the intent of the Islamic State to strike us here in the United States. And that's why we have to go on offense in the war against the Islamic State to fight them where they are before they fight us here in the United States.
We should have imposed new sanctions in 2013 and maintained the strength of our negotiating position, which is what brought Iran to the table in the first place.
Obviously, the United States military can destroy any of Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
I will say that there are genuine and serious concerns about what Hillary Clinton did before the Benghazi attacks, during them, and after them. I think her extremely careless handling of classified information, to use FBI Director Jim Comey's term, disqualifies her from being president.
I can't comment on what every single presidential candidate is saying or doing.
What I can do as the member of the United States Senate is try to do everything I can to keep America safe.
The West has been calling for years for the forces of moderate Islam to stand up to the very small percentage but very large number of radical Muslims all around the world. When countries - the U.A.E. or Egypt or Jordan - do that, we need to highlight it, we need to celebrate it, and we need to continue to encourage it.
We want the president to act to keep America safe.
We need to be tough once again in the world.
Some people say I'm a young man in a hurry. Well, guess what: they're right.
I joined the army after 9/11, after the Iraq war was started. I joined in part because I wanted to go fight on the front lines.
We're going to make America a better place.
My thesis was a defense of our Constitution on the terms that the founding fathers wrote specifically in the Federalist Papers. They hoped that our form of government would draw forward men and women who are the wisest, most prudent, and most experienced.
The world probably wishes that Great Britain had rebuilt its defenses and stopped Germany from reoccupying the Rhineland in 1936.
With Iran, we negotiated privately in 2012-2013 from a position of strength, not a position of weakness. The secret negotiations in Oman. This ultimately led to the Joint Plan of Action of November 2013.
I decided early on, very early, that the best role I could play is to speak in my own voice, assume my own voice and my own ideas. Even if you support a candidate who ultimately wins, what you say and do is seen through the filter of that candidate.
