[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 103 (Friday, June 20, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5778-H5779]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TENSIONS IN THE WORLD TODAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cuellar). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, it says something about tensions in the 
world today when the first thing I want to enter into the Record is a 
reminder of my strong and long-standing commitment to the defense of 
Israel, the safety and security of the Jewish people, and the absolute 
right of Israel to exist.
  I offer this preamble because I also want to say I am deeply troubled 
by the news reports around the world today that Israel recently 
conducted a major military exercise in what many military analysts see 
as training for a possible strike against Iran.
  The United States supplies Israel with billions of dollars in 
military hardware, training and intelligence, and I believe it is both 
appropriate and urgent for the U.S. to raise questions about their 
intentions and to aggressively pursue diplomacy in this region.
  We have made such a mess of things in Iraq that it's hard to believe 
that any nation can think war can achieve peace.
  News reports say Israel conducted a massive military exercise in 
plain sight to send signals to the United States, Europe, and Iran that 
Israel is prepared to launch a massive military strike against targets 
in Iran if diplomatic efforts to halt or delay its nuclear program 
fail.
  Almost immediately, Iran retaliated in the press saying any attack 
against its proud nation with a strong military capability would be met 
with an equally massive counteroffensive. The media reminds us that 
Iran has just taken delivery of accurate Russian-made surface-to-air 
missiles. We are edging perilously close to a hair-trigger moment when 
someone, somewhere, will do something that turns saber rattling into a 
provocative military confrontation, and we will be at war again on 
another front. I am deeply worried by that.
  There are those who would have us believe that U.S. military 
superiority ultimately trumps any nation, any force. We are the most 
powerful military Nation on Earth, but with power comes responsibility, 
accountability and leadership.
  For all the bombs and guns and missiles we have at our disposal, 
history is replete with failed policies and missions and dubious 
figureheads we propped up against the will of the people, and any 
rational approach to U.S. foreign policy. This includes the history of 
our U.S. secret involvement in Iran in the 1950s when we and the 
British worked to overthrow and replace the Iran elected leader, 
Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed the Shah of Iran. We kept him in 
office because we wanted a direct pipeline to Iran's oil well.

                              {time}  1330

  As the most powerful Nation on Earth, you would think that we could

[[Page H5779]]

do a lot more to prevent war than simply wringing our hands while we 
read the newspapers. And I think we can.
  First, we have to abandon the notion that all U.S. policy begins and 
ends behind the butt of a gun. Now some will stand up and say, Well, 
that is just Jim McDermott, the doctor, who believes we don't have to 
use guns to fight for peace. Well, I have some company.
  I would like to enter into the Record a story carried earlier this 
week in the Asia Times. It reports on the first conference held by the 
Center for New American Security. Ambassador James Dobbins, who was 
special envoy to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo under President 
Clinton and special envoy to Afghanistan under the current President 
Bush said that this was about U.S. policy in Iran: ``I reject the 
theory that the implicit threat of force is a necessary prerequisite to 
successful diplomacy.''
  Let me read the news story:
  ``Looking back on 40 years of U.S. diplomacy, Dobbins, now director 
of the Rand International Security and Defense Policy Center, concluded 
that the conventional wisdom about the need to back up diplomacy with 
your adversaries with force is wrong.
  ``'I can say that most of it was not conducted against a background 
of threat of force,' said Dobbins, `and when the threat of force was 
introduced, diplomacy failed.'
  ``In a line that got applause from the more than 750 people attending 
the conference, Dobbins said his solution was to `deal with Iran.' ''
  I urge everyone to read this story and I urge the administration and 
the Congress to start asking tough questions and demanding straight 
answers while there is still time.
  We have seen what strikes in Iraq did back in the 1980s. We saw a 
strike in Syria a few months ago, and we are going to wake up one 
morning with another problem on our hands if we don't start asking 
serious, tough questions of this administration.

                  [From the Asia Times, Jun. 17, 2008]

                       Deal, Deal, Deal With Iran

                           (By Gareth Porter)

       Washington--The assumption that the United States should 
     exploit its military dominance to exert pressure on 
     adversaries has long dominated the thinking of the US 
     national security and political elite. But this central tenet 
     of conventional security doctrine was sharply rejected last 
     week by a senior practitioner of crisis diplomacy at the 
     debut of a major new centrist foreign policy think-tank.
       At the first conference of the Center for a New American 
     Security (CNAS), ambassador James Dobbins, who was former 
     president Bill Clinton's special envoy for Somalia, Haiti, 
     Bosnia and Kosovo and the George W Bush administration's 
     first special envoy to Afghanistan, sharply rejected the 
     well-established concept of coercive diplomacy.
       Dobbins declared in a panel on Iran policy, ``I reject the 
     theory that the implicit threat of force is a necessary 
     prerequisite to successful diplomacy.''
       Looking back on 40 years of US diplomacy, Dobbins, now 
     director of the Rand International Security and Defense 
     Policy Center, concluded that the conventional wisdom about 
     the need to back up diplomacy with adversaries with force is 
     wrong. ``I can say that most of it was not conducted against 
     a background of threat of force,'' said Dobbins, and when the 
     threat of force was introduced, ``diplomacy failed''.
       In diplomatic dealings with the Soviet Union, however, 
     Dobbins said, ``We never threatened to use force.''
       Dobbins complained that the debate over diplomacy with 
     regard to Iran has been between those who are ready to use 
     military force now and those who ``say we should talk with 
     them first''. Advocates of diplomacy, he said, have to ``meet 
     a high threshold--they have to offer the reversal of all 
     Iranian positions''. In effect, they have to deliver Iranian 
     ``capitulation'', said Dobbins.
       Although very different from the Soviet Union as a threat, 
     Dobbins observed, Iran is similar in that ``we can't afford 
     to ignore it and we can't overrun it''. Real diplomacy in 
     regard to Iran, he argued, would result in ``better 
     information and better options''.
       In a line that got applause from the more than 750 people 
     attending the conference, Dobbins said his solution was to 
     ``deal with Iran''.
       The Dobbins argument represents the first high-profile 
     challenge by a veteran of the US national security community 
     to a central tenet of national security officials and the US 
     political elite ever since the end of the Cold War.
       The recently established CNAS has strong connections with 
     former Clinton administration national security officials and 
     the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. CNAS president 
     Michele A. Flournoy and chief executive officer Kurt M. 
     Campbell both held positions in the Clinton Defense 
     Department. William J. Perry and Madeleine K. Albright, 
     Clinton's secretaries of defense and state, respectively, 
     gave opening remarks at the conference.
       The Clinton wing of the Democratic Party and of the 
     national security elite has long associated itself with the 
     idea that the threat of military force--and even force 
     itself--should be at the center of U.S. policy in the Middle 
     East. Key figures from the Clinton administration, including 
     Perry, Albright, former United Nations ambassador Richard 
     Holbrooke, former assistant secretary of state James P. Rubin 
     and former deputy national security adviser James Steinberg, 
     lined up in support of the Bush administration's invasion of 
     Iraq in 2003.
       Flournoy and Campbell have already made it clear that CNAS' 
     orientation will be to hew the common ground uniting the 
     national security professionals who have served 
     administrations of both parties. Flournoy co-authored an op-
     ed with former Bush administration deputy secretary of state 
     Richard Armitage two days before the NCAS conference, and 
     Armitage also introduced the conference.
       A paper by Flournoy and two junior co-authors ostensibly 
     calling for a new U.S. ``grand strategy'' is notable for its 
     reluctance to go too far in criticizing the Bush 
     administration's policies. It argues that the current US 
     positions in Iraq pose the ``real threat of strategic 
     exhaustion'' and calls for ``rebalancing risk'', but offers 
     no real alternative to indefinite continuation of the Bush 
     administration's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
       Instead, it urged the ``rearticulation'' of goals in both 
     Iraq and Afghanistan by replacing the ``maximalist language 
     used in past years'' with ``pragmatism''.
       But the choice of Dobbins to anchor a panel on Iran 
     indicates that the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party and 
     of the national security community now has serious doubts 
     about the coercive diplomacy approach to Iran that has 
     dominated policy thinking since the beginning of the Clinton 
     administration.
       A paper on Iran policy co-authored by Campbell and released 
     at the conference reflects a new skepticism toward the threat 
     of an attack on Iran as a way of obtaining Iranian 
     cooperation. It argues that U.S. military threats against 
     Iran ``have had the opposite effect'' from what was desired, 
     hardening the resolve of Iranian leaders to enrich uranium 
     and giving the Islamic regime greater credibility with the 
     Iran people.
       The paper also reflected an unwillingness to dispense 
     entirely with the military option, however, proposing that 
     the United States ``de-emphasize, but not forswear, the 
     possibility of military action against Iran''.
       The paper advised against even taking the military threat 
     off the table in return for Iran's stopping its nuclear 
     program, on the ground that Washington must be able to use 
     that threat to bargain with Iran over ``stopping its support 
     for terrorism''.
       The principal author of the paper, James N. Miller, who is 
     senior vice president and director of studies at CNAS, 
     explained in an interview after the conference that he 
     believes Dobbins' assessment of the problem is ``about 
     right''. Miller said the threat to use force against Iran to 
     coerce it on its nuclear program ``is not useful or credible 
     now''.
       But Miller said he would not give up that threat, because 
     the next president might enter into serious negotiations with 
     Iran, and Iran might refuse to ``play ball'' and go ahead 
     with plans to acquire nuclear weapons. If the president had a 
     strong coalition behind him, he said, ``The use of force is 
     an option that one should consider.''
       The idea that diplomatic negotiations with Iran over its 
     nuclear program must be backed by the threat of war is so 
     deeply entrenched in Washington that endorsement of it seems 
     to have become a criteria for any candidate being taken 
     seriously by the national security community.
       Thus all three top Democratic hopefuls supported it during 
     their primary fight for the Democratic nomination.
       Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee 
     convention in early 2007, Hillary Clinton said that, in 
     dealing with the possibility of an Iranian nuclear 
     capability, ``no option can be taken off the table''. Barack 
     Obama and John Edwards also explicitly refused to rule out 
     the use of force against Iran if it refused to accept U.S. 
     demands to end its uranium enrichment program.

     

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