Rubio Campaign Press Release - America Must Lead Through Strength And Example, Not Weakness And Concession

Marco's speech at the Foreign Policy Initiative in New York City on August 14, 2015

As we gather here today, two historic events are in progress. The first is the arrival of Secretary of State John Kerry in Cuba. The second is President Obama's continued campaign to secure Congressional approval for his nuclear deal with Iran.

While numerous crises around the globe will require the attention of America's next president, I would like to focus my remarks today on these two dangerous developments with Iran and Cuba, as I believe they represent the convergence of nearly every flawed strategic, moral, and economic notion that has driven President Obama's foreign policy, and as such are emblematic of so many of the crises he has worsened around the world.

These deals demonstrate with jarring clarity how this administration has failed to anticipate impending crises, ignored the realities of the globalized economy, and sought to make America liked rather than respected; the way it has placed politics before policy, adversaries before allies, and legacy before leadership; the way it has confused weakness for restraint, concession for compromise, and — most simply of all — wrong for right.

To fully understand what we're dealing with in regards to Iran and Cuba, we have to understand who we're dealing with.

In Iran, we face radical Shia clerics who wish to one day unite the world under Islam and believe this will only happen after a cataclysmic showdown with the West; leaders who have been directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in the last decade, who continue to lead chants of "Death to America" each week, and who refuse to stop financing terrorists that seek to kill Americans and wipe Israel off the map.

In Cuba, we face proudly anti-American leaders who continue to work with nations like Russia and China to spy on our people and government; who harbor fugitives from American justice; and who stand in opposition to nearly every value our nation holds dear by violating the basic human rights of their own people, preventing democratic elections, and depriving their nation's economy of freedom and opportunity.

The world has missed having an American President who speaks honestly about the world in which we live. In the eyes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Cuban people are suffering because not enough American tourists visit the country, when the truth is the Cuban people are suffering because they live in a tyrannical dictatorship.

View the full remarks here.