ICYMI: Sen. Cruz Op-Ed in The New York Times: ‘The Mullahs and Their Missiles’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today penned an op-ed for The New York Times, calling for strengthening our defenses and those of our allies, specifically support for Israel's missile defense programs, in the face of Iran's ongoing hostility and belligerence.
Read Sen. Cruz’s op-ed in its entirety here. Excerpts are available below:
On Monday, the Iranian military’s deputy chief of staff announced that the Islamic Republic had successfully tested yet another ballistic missile — this time, a high-precision midrange weapon with a reported reach of 2,000 kilometers, or 1,250 miles, and with a degree of accuracy that he claimed to be “without any error.” If these statements are true, the entire Middle East, including Israel, is within the reach of the mullahs’ missiles.
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The mullahs’ policy is, by their own admission, unchanged. It is the same one that inspired the so-called revolutionaries of 1979 to take 52 Americans as hostages for 444 days, and motivated murderous attacks on Israelis and Americans from Buenos Aires to Beirut to Baghdad over the subsequent decades. The only thing that is changing now is the potential scale of this violence, as they seek to replace truck bombs and roadside explosive devices with the most destructive weapons on the planet and the means to deliver them.
The sensible thing to do now is to face this reality, however unpleasant it may be, and do what we can to bolster our defenses and those of our allies.
As a first step, I look forward to working with my congressional colleagues this week and in coming months to make sure that President Obama’s failure to sufficiently fund Israel’s missile defense programs in his latest budget request is reversed.
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We have all been impressed by the success of Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, which targets short-range rockets and was implemented with the generous assistance of American taxpayers.
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Rather than starving these programs, Congress should seize this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to Israel’s security and so to our own. That would send the leaders of the Islamic Republic an unmistakable signal that there are at least some in Washington who still take them at their word, and will act accordingly.
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