Ted Cruz Quotes

Iran would do well to look at the calendar and realize there's a new president in the Oval Office. And Iran would do well not to test the resolve of this new president [Donald Trump].

I still remember, as a kid, tying a yellow ribbon around a tree in front of my house during the 444 days that Iran held 52 Americans hostage. Iran is not a place we should be doing business with.

In those years,'80 was the, at the turn of '79/'80 you had the invasion of Afghanistan. It was the period in which the Americans attempt to liberate, to, to liberate the hostages in Iran and all these, all these things, the atmosphere was freezing - boycott of the Olympic Games and all that.

I think Iran deal is on life support, I'll put it that way, but I'm not here to declare one way or the other where it will go. But I do believe it's on life support. I know the president-elect does not like the Iran deal, thinks it's really, really bad. And that's sort of the starting point on that discussion.

Who said that think we should normalize relations with Iran tomorrow? I never said that. I think we should move forward as quickly as we can.

For decades, our differences with Iran meant that our governments almost never spoke to each other. Ultimately, that did not advance America's interests.

We are helping the people that [George W.]Bush says are evil. Teheran couldn't be happier about the high oil prices resulting from the Iraq war.

President Carter famously said the hostages were the first thing he thought about in the morning and the last thing he thought about at night. It was a downright foolish thing to say, because it made the people holding the hostages realize that they had an awful lot of influence over the United States.

Iran should write us a letter of thank you for taking Mosul.

My advice for Obama concerning Iran is just to do what you already promised you would do, open up communications with Iran. Which is what I did after the Shah was deposed, as you know when the revolutionary government came in, I still had diplomatic relations with Iran, otherwise the hostages wouldn't have been there. We had about, as you know, 60 some diplomats in Iran, they had about the same number in Washington.

As long as I'm president of the United States Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. I made that clear when I came into office.

In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons, but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.

Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting 50 billion dollars worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true.

I am worried because I'm hearing some of the same signals about Iran and its nuclear program that were heard as the Bush administration made its case for the war in Iraq. 'It's déjà vu all over again.

As you know, we don't have relationships with Iran. I mean, that's - ever since the late '70s, we have no contacts with them, and we've totally sanctioned them. In other words, there's no sanctions - you can't - we're out of sanctions.

Donald Trump basically said: One state, two states, do whatever you like. I do not think this was a serious statement of American policy. This was him shrugging his shoulders and saying: Who cares about it. I think he doesn't even have the faintest idea of what he wants to do in the Middle East.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is controlling this, the sanctions against Iran are lifted - but still the US are working on their missile defense system. What is the point of this?

We have to be careful in negotiating with Iran that we don't create the impression among the Arab states and the Sunni states that we are working on a condominium between Iran and the United States, because that will panic them and drive them into making their own arrangement.

If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely... Our patience is not unlimited.

The Donald Trump phone call with the president of Taiwan seems very much in line with his rhetoric during the campaign that he intended to be tough on China. And don't forget, we have seen a lot of presidential candidates, memorably, Bill Clinton, who used to criticize George Herbert Walker Bush for coddling dictators and then take the much softer line with China once he's in office.

The thing that strikes me, from looking at the names so far in the Donald Trump's Cabinet on the foreign policy side, is the one thing that unites them - and that's General James Mattis at the Pentagon, Mike Pompeo at the CIA, even Mitt Romney to become secretary of state - they're all very, very hawkish on Iran.

The United States is going to continue to punish Iran because of its defiance.

Well, I think the U.S. has been careful not to go too far in attacking Iran's allies, in particular in attacking Hezbollah forces in Syria, which have been propping up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Please don't suggest that I think we normalize relations with Tehran tomorrow. We don't. But I would like to see us move forward, and hopefully some day that will happen.

This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table