May 20, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 84 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
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IRAN; Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 84
(Senate - May 20, 2019)
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[Pages S2954-S2957] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] IRAN Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to address the Chamber on an issue that is an issue of significant challenge and controversy now, and that is the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. I want to make a couple of points, but let me summarize the points as I then address the current challenge. First, I think it would be absolute lunacy for the United States to get involved in another war right now in the Middle East. I think it would be devastating if we were to be in a war with Iran. In particular, it would be not only devastating but also, in my view, unconstitutional for us to be in a war with Iran at a President's say- so if the President were unwilling to have Congress have the debate, pursuant to our article I war powers in this Chamber and in the Chambers of the House of Representatives. If this body has a considered debate in view of the American public and determines that we need to be in a war with Iran--or anyone, for that matter--however I vote is irrelevant. The vote of the body would be the vote that would express a political consensus about what America should do. But if the Chamber is unwilling to have that debate or a vote or if the President is unwilling to come to Congress so that the debate can be had in front of the American public, that should tell us something. If we are not willing to have the vote or if the President doesn't want to bring it to Congress, that should suggest that maybe it is not a good idea. That is the theme of what I want to talk about today. Why are we in a time of escalated tension between the United States and Iran? There are a number of reasons, but, bluntly, I believe the path to the current level of tension began when President Trump unilaterally walked out of a diplomatic deal. I think our country should always prefer diplomacy to war. A President backing out of a diplomatic deal that our allies, our security officials, and the International Atomic Energy Agency said was working, in my view, was a horrible mistake. There is a story I have told before in the Chamber, and it is a story I love. It is about one of my two favorite Presidents. One of my favorite Presidents is a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, and my other favorite President is Harry Truman. This is a Truman story. After World War II, at one point, President Truman invited the press corps into his office, the Oval Office, and said: I have made an interesting decision today. They wondered what the decision was. President Truman showed them that he had redesigned the seal of the Presidency of the United States. The seal of the President was very similar to our Nation's seal of an eagle clutching the arrows of war in one claw and the olive branch of peace in the other claw. Prior to the Truman administration, the eagle's face had been turned toward the arrows of war. In the aftermath of World War II, when the United States was trying to exercise the role of not just military victor but now of a great peacemaker by forming the United Nations and other institutions to ensure that the carnage of World War II wouldn't be repeated, Harry Truman said: We should redesign the seal of the Presidency so that the United States is represented by an eagle whose face is looking toward the olive branches of peace. We would always prefer peace. We would always prefer diplomacy. The arrows of war are still grasped in the eagle's claw. We are a nation of might, and we will use that might if we need it. But let no one in the world doubt what the preference of the United States is; that is, diplomacy and peace if that is possible and if that is honorable. You can walk around the Senate Chamber, you can walk around the Capitol, and you can actually see both versions of the seal. You can still find some in the Capitol that were created before Harry Truman was President where you will still see the eagle's face directed toward the arrows. Many of them have been changed in subsequent years. It is interesting trivia--like a treasure hunt contest--for our pages and others. You can still find the old version. [[Page S2955]] I think we can all resonate with Harry Truman, a World War I vet and the guy who presided over the end of America's victory in World War II. He is somebody who certainly knew war and who certainly understood the role of American military strength in the world, but he said this Nation should be a nation always known as a nation willing to pursue and committed to pursuing diplomacy and peace first, with war as a last resort. I believe firmly in that as my job description in the U.S. Senate. I am a member of the Armed Services Committee, and I am a member of the Foreign Relations Committee--war and diplomacy. I am a Senator from a very military State. I have a child in the U.S. military. I think my job in this body and my job as a member of those two committees is first to reduce the risk of unnecessary war. A lot of wars are unnecessary. A lot of wars are created by provocations and miscommunications and then escalations based upon a misunderstanding of provocations and miscommunications. Then you find yourself in catastrophic wars that maybe nobody really designed them to be. That is how a lot of wars start. We should reduce the risk of unnecessary war. Diplomacy is how we do that. Then, obviously, we need to be patriotic and strong. We need to raise the likelihood of winning a war we need to be in. We do not need to be in another war in the Middle East. We do not need to be in a war with Iran. The relationship between the United States and Iran was a very positive relationship for many, many years. It was also connected to a lot of controversy. The United States, including the Central Intelligence Agency, backed a coup to depose a democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in the 1950s, and the subsequent leader, the Shah of Iran, was a close ally of the United States. In 1979, the people of Iran rose up to depose the Shah of Iran. Not surprisingly, with the United States having supported the Shah and having supported the coup that led to the Shah, that put the U.S.-Iran relationship in a very different place. That tearing of the relationship was obviously dramatically enhanced when the Iranian regime, the revolutionary regime, took U.S. Embassy personnel hostage in 1979. So from 1979, for 35 or 40 years, the nations had no essential contact. We provided massive support for the nation of Iraq in the late 1980s and the early 1990s as they engaged in a war with Iran. That is known by the Iranian people. Yet, even with the challenges of our government, the relationship between the United States and the Iranian people has maintained. Iranians study in the United States. Over the years, more members of the Iranian Cabinet have had Ph.D.s from American universities than members of the American Cabinet. It is kind of quirky. One of the nations that we view as one of our key adversaries in the world--it has been very, very common for their governmental leaders, including their Foreign Minister, to have studied and gotten degrees in the United States. But the relationship was characterized on both sides by a great deal of distrust, with a lot of legitimate reason for distrust. On the U.S. side, they say: You took our Embassy. You took our personnel hostage. During the Iraq war, Iranian militia units were often providing materials and IEDs that were being used against American troops. Hundreds--thousands of American troops were killed or injured by materials that came from Iran. So we have deep distrust for Iran for very legitimate reasons. On the Iranian side, they say: You deposed our Prime Minister in 1954. You propped up a dictator over us. You supported Iraq in a war that cost us hundreds of thousands of lives. They have a deep distrust of the United States. How do you work through distrust? In a personal relationship and in a relationship with a nation, you cannot solve distrust overnight. You never can. You have to work through it patiently and slowly. When President Obama announced that he was opening up a discussion with Iran about a diplomatic deal to limit their nuclear weapons program, there was very little reason to suggest that a deal might be found. Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The U.S. Congress, in a bipartisan way--and I have been a supporter of these--had sanctioned Iran for its activities in trying to seek nuclear weapons-- activities that were not only dangerous in the region and the world but also would have violated a number of key U.N. provisions affecting Iran or generally applying to all nations. In a powerful speech to the United Nations in 2011--in some ways, I think it is the best speech that has ever been given about the Iranian challenge. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel--it was a famous speech because he drew a picture of a bomb that looked like the Wile E. Coyote bomb in the Road Runner cartoons. That got the attention, but his words were really powerful. He thanked the General Assembly of the United Nations in the speech because the nations of the U.N. had joined together in a sanctions regime that was putting tough pressure on Iran. The Prime Minister thanked the General Assembly and said: Thank you for joining in these sanctions, but we have to be honest. The sanctions are hurting Iran's economy, but they are not slowing down Iran's nuclear program. To some degree, if you use pressure of that kind, a nation or a person is likely to say: If you are pressuring, I have to stand up against you. So the Iranian economy was suffering, but the nuclear program was actually accelerating. Iran was building a facility that enriched plutonium and was dramatically enriching plutonium at higher and higher levels that would be the equivalent of weapons-grade uranium. They were getting closer and closer to having nuclear weapons. That would have posed an existential choice of war or accepting a nuclear Iran. Accepting a nuclear Iran would have also meant accepting an arms race with other nations in the Middle East--an arms race that we viewed as untenable. So the Obama administration said: We will talk. We will see if we can find a diplomatic deal. That doesn't mean that we approve of Iran or that we approve of Iran's behavior, but we believe it is in the interest of the region, our country, and the world if we could limit Iran's nuclear ambitions. From 2013 until 2015--2 years of negotiation, in my view, produced a very solid agreement, a diplomatic agreement with an adversary. It didn't turn the adversary into an ally, just as our negotiations with the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s over nuclear treaties didn't turn an adversary into an ally, but it effectively controlled the Iranian nuclear weapons program. It limited the amount of enriched uranium. It limited the percentage of enrichment to far below weapons- grade. It shut off plutonium production in Iran. It especially allowed intrusive inspections into Iran so we could decide whether they were cheating--intrusive inspections that even gave us intel so that if they ever cheated, we would know where nuclear assets would be if we needed to take action to take them out of commission. The deal that was struck by the Obama administration with Iran was a deal that basically had intensive requirements on both parties, the United States and Iran, for 8 years. In kind of a testing arrangement, every year they would say: Did you meet your obligation? I don't trust you for anything, but did you meet your obligation? And they would ask us the same question. That is the way you work out of distrust. You can't work out of it immediately; you work out of it patiently--well, we don't like what you are doing, but you actually stuck with the agreement in year 1. Now let's see about year 2. The idea was that by the eighth year, we could know enough to know whether the United States could back away from the sanctions regime, and we would know enough to know whether Iran would permanently embrace the intrusive inspection provisions of a nuclear nonproliferation treaty that the IAEA has developed for all nations--including an additional protocol developed after North Korea cheated--to make the inspections really intrusive so you could catch cheating if it happens. That would be the first 8 years, and then there would be a continuation of additional requirements on Iran for [[Page S2956]] years 8 to 15 and then somewhat of a stepdown from years 15 to 25. But then, after year 25, what would remain would still be a permanent Iranian agreement to follow the inspection requirements of the IAEA, including the additional protocol and the commitment that was in the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first page of the agreement Iran committed to: We will never seek to purchase, acquire, or develop nuclear weapons, period. That was the first sentence. That was the first paragraph. That was the opening phrase of the agreement Iran reaffirmed, that its commitment would be to never seek to purchase or acquire nuclear weapons. When President Trump came into office in January 2017, Iran was complying with the agreement. That was the position of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has a high record of getting these things right. In 2002, the IAEA told us that Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons. We went to war to stop their nuclear weapons program, saying that the IAEA was wrong. The IAEA was right, and we blundered into an unnecessary war then, at massive cost to the United States in life and treasure and at massive cost to Iraq as well. When President Trump came in, the IAEA said that Iran was complying with the deal. Our allies--Britain, France, and Germany, which helped us negotiate the deal--said that Iran was complying with the deal. I am on the Foreign Relations Committee, and I visit with leaders of foreign countries. I visit with our allies in the Middle East. While the political leaders might say one thing, if you met with armed services members or intel members in Israel, Jordan, and other nations, they would say Iran is complying with the deal. President Trump's own Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis--``Mad Dog'' Mattis; he is called Mad Dog because he was perceived to be a hawk on Iran--testified before the Armed Services Committee: Iran is complying with the deal. It is in the interest of the United States to stay in the deal. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joe Dunford--a marine general who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under President Obama and President Trump--testified to the Armed Services Committee: Iran is complying with the deal. It is in the interest of the United States to stay in the deal. President Trump's first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said: Iran is complying with the deal. It is in our interest to stay in. Dan Coats, the current Director of National Intelligence, said Iran is complying with the deal. Our allies, the IAEA, and President Trump's own national security team said Iran is complying with the deal. But a year ago, President Trump said: It is going to be the United States that will renege--not the adversary that will back out, not a bad nation that will turn away from a diplomatic deal; it will be the United States that will back away from a diplomatic deal that has effectively limited Iran's program. I am not aware of an instance in the history of this country where it has been the United States that made a unilateral decision to break a diplomatic deal. Our allies begged us not to do this. The national security team recommended that the President not do this, but the President broke the diplomatic deal. And guess what. If you break a diplomatic deal, you raise the risk of unnecessary war. I wrote a piece in the Atlantic in July of 2018 urging the President not to blunder us into a war. I cited this very fact. Once you have broken the deal, you raise the risk of war, and this President has in breaking the deal. Now we are at a point of escalation with Iran. They look at the United States' breaking the deal. They look at sanctions that the United States has imposed. They are preparing for potential invasion by the United States, and, yes, they are also pushing back. They are engaged in activities in the region, as they were before. We will have a briefing tomorrow in the SCIF. We are going to hear about what Iran is doing. As we are getting that briefing, we need to ask: Well, what do they think the United States is doing? It wasn't Iran that broke the deal. It was the United States. It is not Iran that is imposing sanctions. It is the United States. What we need now is cooler heads that will help us understand the American commitment to diplomacy. That word still needs to be put at the forefront. Sadly, the advisers--the trusted advisers, the advisers of great background and judgment who advised the President not to back out of the deal--have all been fired or forced to resign. Secretary Mattis, Secretary Tillerson, and General McMaster, the National Security Advisor, had the same position about the deal. Two of the key officials in the Trump administration--the second Secretary of State, Pompeo, and the third National Security Advisor, John Bolton, individuals whom I applaud for their public service record--have had a long track record of, before being in these positions, encouraging war with Iran and of encouraging regime change with Iran. I was asked last week: Why are the tensions with Iran now so palpable? Why does it seem like we may be on the brink of war? I said: There are two reasons. The first reason is that the President tore up a diplomatic deal that was working, and the second reason is that the President replaced sober-minded, careful national security professionals with people who have a long track record of publicly encouraging both regime change in Iran and military action against Iran. There should be no surprise that we are where we are right now. What do we need to do? What do we need to do as a nation, but especially what do we need to do in this body? As a nation, I think I know what the perspective of Virginians is, and I would be amazed if that perspective were so different than that of Americans. It would be very foolish to get into another war right now. There have been 18 years of war in the Middle East since 9/11. That war has multiplied into many different countries and against many different organizations. As for the idea of another war in the Middle East right now, when the President and his team suggested in the last 10 days that war plans have been drawn up directed by NSA Bolton--they have been drawn up to call potentially for the deployment of 125,000 American troops into the region--I know how that made Virginians feel. Virginia families who have had their loved ones deployed not once or twice but sometimes four or five or six times, when they hear the President's team talking about such a potential deployment, it is enormously frightening to them--enormously frightening to them. When Virginians who have kids or spouses in the military hear Members of Congress suggesting that a war against Iran would be easy, it is enormously frightening to them--enormously frightening to them. So what do I hope will happen? I hope that knowing what the Nation would think about it, I hope that what will happen is that Congress will do what we are supposed to do as the article I branch. The Framers of the Constitution were so clear about this. The Constitution is filled with clear provisions: The President has to be 35 years old. And it has vague provisions: You can't have unreasonable searches and seizures. What does ``unreasonable'' mean? But on the spectrum of clear to ambiguous provisions, the war making powers are pretty clear. It is Congress that declares war, not the President. It is Congress. A President can defend the Nation against imminent attack without asking Congress for permission. That is clear in the Constitution, but as for the initiation of war, it is not for a President to say it and start it. It is not for a President to, by a series of provocations, blunder us down the path where war becomes inevitable. It is for Congress, having a debate in this Chamber and the House--a debate that can be witnessed by the American public, a debate that will educate the American public about what the stakes are, a debate that has to be finished with a vote where every Member of Congress has to go on the board with the courage of their convictions and the backbone to vote yes or no. That is what is supposed to precede going to war. I hope, in this time of escalation, that what we might do as a Congress is, a, recommit to the virtues of diplomacy and vow again not to be the party that blows up diplomatic deals [[Page S2957]] and walks away when other nations are at the table wanting to pursue peaceful diplomacy. And, second, if we are to be in a war, I would hope that this body would jealously guard that prerogative and want to have that debate here on the floor. There are members of this body that feel very differently about what I have just stated and the points that I have made, and we ought to have that debate here on the floor, not in dueling press conferences or dueling appearances on cable shows. We should be having that debate here on the floor. So, as I conclude, I pray that the escalation of tensions that we have seen, the discussions of deploying 120,000 troops in the Middle East, may be abating a bit. I pray that we will ask tough questions. We have our briefing tomorrow at the all-Senate briefing on this important matter. I hope that as we enter into a discussion, in the Armed Services Committee first and then on the floor of the body, about the National Defense Authorization Act, that this would be a perfect opportunity for us to kind of talk about the equities, the plusses and minuses, what is at stake, and what we might do. I will also just say, as a last point, that we now know how to have that debate on the floor. If the President wants to start a war without us--and, make no mistake, none of the existing authorizations from 2001 or 2002 would authorize military action against Iran. Not a single person here voting to go to war against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack intended that to be used as an authorization to wage war against the nation of Iran. If the President decides to go to war against Iran without us, we now have a vehicle--a war powers resolution vehicle that we just recently used in connection with U.S. support for the Saudi ``misprosecution'' of the civil war in Yemen. We now have an opportunity to force a vote. If the President gets us into hostilities that are not authorized by Congress, we have the opportunity--and, I would say, the obligation--to file a resolution that must be brought to the floor of this body, that must be debated on, and it must be voted on. We should not be at war with Iran unless this body is willing to vote on it. If the President decides that he wants to go to war with Iran and not come to Congress, what does it say about his judgment? His judgment is that he doesn't think Congress will support it. If he doesn't think Congress will support it, maybe it is because it is not a good idea. So, as I conclude, I think these are very, very challenging times. There is not a power we should guard more jealously than the power to put the men and women of our armed services into harm's way. We should not let a President--Democrat or Republican--make that decision without us. We should not let a President--Democrat or Republican--use a series of provocations to blunder us into it. We should not casually let a President--Democrat or Republican--tear up diplomatic deals and have the United States be the party that is walking away from a table of dialogue where we might find a peaceful and diplomatic resolution to controversies. In the days ahead, in the NDAA process, and then, God forbid, if the President were to initiate us into some kind of a military action, through a war powers resolution of the kind that we just voted on here on the Senate floor, we will have an opportunity as a body to deal with this, and I pray that we will deal with it with the seriousness that it deserves. There is nothing, nothing more serious than this. Maybe just the last thing I will say is this. You know my background. I started in city council, and I cast thousands of votes, just as you have, as a city councilman and mayor, as Lieutenant Governor and Governor, and now as a Member of this body. I have cast all kinds of votes. A vote on war is the most significant vote you will ever cast. I cast two votes on the war resolutions in the Foreign Relations Committee, and it was interesting casting votes on those, even though they ended up not leading to votes on the floor. There is just a feeling about the gravity of that vote and the feeling in my stomach as I was trying to decide how to vote. Even when I decided how to vote and making my mouth say the word about how I wanted to vote, it was a vote unlike anything for those two, unlike any other vote that I have ever cast. Part of that, no doubt, is the connection that Virginians feel so closely to the military. Part of it, no doubt, is having a child in the military and knowing what a vote like that might mean to marines like my oldest son. This is a topic that has to be the most serious thing we do, and we can't outsource our moral responsibility about it to a President. In fact, we need to jealously guard that responsibility, and I hope we will. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________
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