Senator Bob Casey: Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism even as the nuclear negotiations continue

                     
Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee overseeing the Middle East and current member of Finance Committee told CNN that the recent events on the Syrian and Lebanese borders is another reminder that the 'Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and one of the oldest and most sophisticated and capable one. And one of the reasons they have that capability is because they are funded by the Iranian regime, and it is another reminder that even as we are debating how to approach the nuclear negotiations with Iran, that Iran all the while is the leading state spencer of terrorism in the world and we know that too, and it has played out for years. Hezbollah is not some far out organization that our country is unfamiliar with. They not even have targeted Americans, but they have killed Americans. In fact by some estimates, Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization or maybe they are number 2. But they have a predominant influence, not just in Lebanon, but in the region as well...'.
CNN asked that if Senator Casey is blaming Hezbollah for the bombing and blowing up of the US Embassy in Beirut in early 1980s and for the bombing of the Marine Barracks outside of Beirut that killed about 240 US Marians. 
Senator Casey replied: 'Exactly, so they have shown over decades now that they will engage in terrorism against anyone and anytime and anywhere and that would not be possible, or they would not be as capable were not for the Iranian regime backing them up.' 
Senator in reply to another question regarding the Iran sanctions said: 'I was part of a letter that a number of Democrats signed. We worked together to send a letter to the President which outlined, frankly, lot of our skepticism about the possibility of an agreement with Iran. I have real skepticism. We also outlined a number of our concerns, but we did say in that letter that we wanted to give this process more time, at least until March 24th, so that a framework would be developed. We hope that would happen and we want to be optimistic, but I think it is a reasonable approach to take right now. But in the same time, I am sponsoring a new bill on sanctions that just got through the Banking Committee today, 18 to 4 in a bi-partisan fashion. We will hold that in a ban, so to speak, until we get through that date in March. But after that I am not sure it makes sense to have a delay, because we have to make sure that the Iranian regime knows that there is a bi-partisan consensus here to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapons capability, and I emphasis on that last word. And I think that bi-partisan approach is the right approach... but I am skeptic.