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among others, the United States. And I think the election of a lot of mayors in places like Tehran, the capital of Iran, which has changed from a hardliner who didn’t agree with President Ruhani’s views on this matter—they were turned out of office. That is all a very encouraging development. There are still people in that country who don’t like us, and they wish us harm, wish us ill, and they support terrorism. This is a source of concern. But, particularly with the younger people there, it is a new day there, and I think that is encouraging. We shouldn’t be blind to the mischief that some in their country would create, but we also shouldn’t be blind to the encouraging things happening among the young people, especially reflected in the voting. We congratulate them on actually having an election where that many people voted. In some other countries around the world where Muslim is the principal faith, they don’t allow women to vote. They don’t allow women to participate in the elections, and they don’t allow them to get elected. In Iran, the elections in I think Tehran, in the city council alone—women do vote in Iran. They get to run for office. I think in the city council in Tehran alone, six women were elected to serve on the city council. So that is a positive. We commend them for having elections, and it is their job to figure out whom they are going to elect. I am personally encouraged by the turnout and the participation, especially of women, the election of women, and the President and a lot of young leaders in that country who have different view of us and their willingness to work with us and other like-minded nations in the future. On the heels of the election, roughly 2 weeks later, there were terrorist attacks in London, in Britain, I think in Australia in the last couple of weeks, and, in the last few days, in Iran. Their Parliament was attacked. You can imagine terrorists coming in and attacking those of us who work in this building, whether they happen to be the pages or Senators or staff. That is what happened in Tehran a couple of days ago at 10 o’clock in the morning, with folks breaking into Parliament and trying to kill folks. They also attacked a sacred site—I think a mausoleum—in another part of the country. Close to 15 people were killed, and many times that number were wounded, some very seriously. On the heels of that attack and on the heels of the election, on the heels of the attack by ISIS—in both of the attacks on Iran, the attacks were masterminded apparently by ISIS. We don’t know for sure given that ISIS tries to take credit for attacks they had nothing to do with or little to do with. But there are people in Great Britain who have lost loved ones, family members, friends. They are suffering, they are hurting, and they are mourning today, and the same is true of Iran.
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Great Britain is one of our two or three closest allies in the world. They are like brothers and sisters to us, and we feel a special kinship and extend our condolences to those whose lives have been ended, whose lives have been shattered, and whose lives will be forever changed. While we do that with our friends and allies in Britain who suffered from these attacks by ISIS, on the heels of a different kind of election in Iran—an encouraging election in Iran—and similar attacks by ISIS on Iran—some suggest it is because they have a willingness to actually have a better relationship with us, and maybe that is what drew the attacks by ISIS. In any event, we certainly express our condolences to the good people in Iran who lost their brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, and sons, and we remember them today. The resolution has been drafted by Senator CORKER, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, and by Senator CARDIN. It is a resolution that is not very long. I am going to read it. It is a resolution that dates to these attacks and mentions both countries I just mentioned—Great Britain, our ally, and Iran, with which we have had difficulty for the last 30, 40 years but which is now interested in a new day with us. To the extent that we can find a way to work together, especially in commerce, the Iranians want to buy aircraft from us. They want to buy Boeing aircraft. They don’t want military aircraft. They have an airline which is just awful. It is decrepit, old, aged, and they want to buy $10 to $12 billion worth of Boeing aircrafts, passenger airlines. I would say let’s sell to them. The idea is, if we would do that, we would not just put 5 or 10,000 people to work, we would provide job employment opportunities for even more people than that in this country. Why wouldn’t we be interested in that? I hope we will allow that to go forward. It would be good for us and also it would be good for them, and maybe it would provide a foundation for working more closely together. I don’t know if we would have the kind of relationship that we have with Britain, but as a veteran of the Vietnam war, I can state that when I go for a run some mornings—when I stay down here and go for a run early in the morning, I run down to the Lincoln Memorial. I always run by the Vietnam Memorial. I take my fingers, and as I go along the wall, I let my fingers brush over the names of the people with whom I served, and there are 55,000 who died in that war. They were our friends, our colleagues, our family members, people we literally served with at that time, and they are gone. Yet somehow we have been able to let bygones be bygones and develop a close, august friendship with the Vietnamese. We are their strongest trading partner. They are buying a lot of aircraft from us these days, and we are now going to sell weaponry to them. We are not going to do anything like that with Iran, certainly with respect
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to weaponry, but if we can get over finally our difficulties of war and hostilities and so forth with the Vietnamese, maybe we can someday, with a change in leadership with Iran, begin to look more toward a constructive relationship in the future. The other thing I want to do is, I just want to take this resolution and actually read that which Senators CORKER and CARDIN and their staffs have worked on and thank them for their good work. There will probably be a vote later this evening in wrapup, where there will be a unanimous consent request that this bipartisan resolution be approved. I think it is a good thing, it is the right thing, it is a fair thing. How would we want to be treated by other countries if ISIS attacks us and kills our people? We want them to be sympathetic and have some feeling for us and not be quiet about it. That is essentially what we want to do here. The resolution goes something like this: Condemning the recent terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq, Australia, and Iran.
It offers ‘‘thoughts and prayers and sincere condolences to all of the victims, their families, and the people of their countries.’’ Whereas since May 22, 2017, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for multiple terrorist attacks against civilians that have left more than 180 dead and many more wounded. Whereas ISIS frequently claims attacks perpetrated by individual actors or other groups for propaganda purposes. Whereas the people of the United Kingdom are grieving following two terrorist attacks claimed by ISIS in London on June 4 and Manchester on May 22 that targeted and killed innocent men, women, and children. Whereas government forces in the Philippines are currently fighting ISIS militants in Mindanao, including ISIS-affiliated fighters from the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Chechnya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, who launched an assault in Marawi City on May 23 in an apparent effort to establish a caliphate in Southeast Asia. Whereas ISIS has claimed responsibility for two explosions in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing three policemen. Whereas ISIS targeted Coptic Christians in Egypt during an attack on a bus on May 26, killing 29 people. Whereas 22 people were killed when ISIS detonated a car bomb at a Baghdad ice cream parlor, killing Iraqi families gathering with their children to break the Ramadan fast, and then detonated a second bomb killing elderly Iraqis collecting their pensions. Whereas a terrorist attack claimed by ISIS killed one person in Melbourne, Australia, and wounded three police officers. Whereas on June 7, in an attack claimed by ISIS, at least 12 people were killed when gunmen and suicide bombers targeted Iran’s parliament and a shrine—
I believe it was a mausoleum or where one of their earlier leaders was entombed, enshrined— in two coordinated attacks across Tehran. Whereas these reprehensible attacks have no place in a peaceful world: Now, therefore, be it
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