Senator Bob Menendez speaking in the Senate on February 1, 2022
“Hope is not a national security strategy,” Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said on Tuesday speaking about Washington's Iran policy and ongoing nuclear talks.
At a dinner by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee of New Jersey, Menendez stressed the need for a new Iran strategy and an end to year-long negotiations with Iran to restore the JCPOA.
“It is time to tell the Europeans, who[m] we have shown good faith with, that we were willing to enter into what was hopefully a stronger and longer deal, that the Iranians are not there,” Menendez said according to Jewish Insider.
Menendez, who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, first expressed misgivings about the Biden Administration’s Iran approach in a speech on the Senate floor in early February.
Menendez revealed in his remarks that he has demanded a classified hearing to find out what the administration’s strategy is and said, “in the absence of hearing a plan in a classified setting, then I intend to create… legislation that will ultimately dictate what a plan should be.”
The powerful Senate Democrat demanded that Biden should enforce oil export sanctions currently on the books against Iran. Since Biden’s election Tehran has increased its oil exports to nearly one million barrels a day, mostly in illicit shipments to China.
He also emphasized the need for military deterrence against Iran, “to defend our people and our interests"