[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 24, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S738]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IRANIAN INFLUENCE IN IRAQ

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, last week, Clifford May, the president of the 
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, wrote in the National Review 
that the U.S. should renew its focus on the Iranian regime's influence 
in Iraq. He warned that the success of the surge in Iraq, which both 
the President and Vice President opposed when they served in this body, 
could be transformed into a ``bipartisan failure'' if we don't increase 
pressure on the Iranian regime.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
the article to which I just referred.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       [From the National Review]

                           Who's Losing Iraq?


                       And could Iran be winning?

                          (By Clifford D. May)

       ``I am very optimistic about--about Iraq. I mean, this 
     could be one of the great achievements of this 
     administration.''
       Vice President Joseph Biden's comments to CNN's Larry King 
     sparked a brouhaha for an obvious reason: When they were 
     senators, Biden and Barack Obama opposed the ``surge'' that 
     averted America's defeat in Iraq. It takes chutzpah for them 
     to now claim credit for the fruits of that strategy.
       But a less obvious and more significant point is being 
     missed: Iraq may, in the end, turn out to be nobody's 
     achievement. It may turn out to be a military success 
     transformed by politicians and diplomats into a bipartisan 
     failure. Recent developments in Iraq are ominous. The Obama 
     administration is not addressing them effectively. And 
     conservative critics of the Obama administration are 
     strangely silent.
       Robert Dreyfus is a journalist of the left with whom I 
     seldom agree; he writes for The Nation, a publication of the 
     far left that usually makes my eyes roll. But in his Nation 
     blog, Dreyfus correctly notes that as the campaign gets 
     underway for Iraq's March 7 elections, close to 500 
     candidates have been banned for alleged ties to the Baath 
     Party by the Justice and Accountability Council, ``an 
     unelected panel headed by an Iran-linked terrorist, Ali al-
     Lami.''
       Among those barred are ``the No. 2 and No. 3 candidates in 
     the main opposition bloc, the Iraqi Nationalist Movement, 
     which is led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi [a secular 
     Shia]. Already, two members of Allawi's party have been 
     assassinated while campaigning. . . . Allawi, who many 
     observers say had a credible chance of winning enough votes 
     to lead a governing coalition after the election, has 
     suspended his campaign. . . . Many Sunni leaders are talking 
     about a boycott.''
       The most serious concern here is not that Iraqi democracy 
     is fledgling and flawed--we knew that. What's troubling is 
     the fact that Iran's militant jihadi rulers are apparently 
     manipulating the process--with impunity.
       Most Iraqis do not want their country to be controlled by 
     Iran. Most do not want it to become an Iranian satrapy like 
     Syria, Iraq's neighbor to the west. Most Iraqis do not want 
     to live as Iranians have been living--under the thumb of 
     oppressive theocrats and thuggish Revolutionary Guards.
       But Iraqis know that American troops--the ``strongest 
     tribe''--are leaving. The bullies in Tehran, by contrast, may 
     be staying right where they are. Iran's rulers can give you 
     money and weapons. Or they and their treacherous agents in 
     Iraq can have you eliminated.
       The fact that Ali al-Lami is playing a central role in 
     determining who can and who cannot run for election is--or 
     should be--alarming. In 2008, he was detained by American 
     forces in connection with an Iranian-backed ``Special 
     Groups'' militia believed to have bombed a municipal 
     building, killing two State Department employees along with 
     six Iraqis. A ``senior U.S. military intelligence official'' 
     told the Associated Press there were ``multiple and 
     corroborating reports'' pointing to al-Lami's involvement.
       Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of al-Arabiya 
     television, writing in the international Arabic daily Asharq 
     Alawsat, recently called al-Lami ``the man to fear in Iraq. . 
     . . He shows his claws at anyone who dares oppose him and he 
     accuses his opponents of Baathism,'' including even Gen. 
     David Petraeus ``who has fought the Baathists the most and if 
     it weren't for him, al-Lami would not be able to reach his 
     home in one piece. Al-Lami accused Petraeus of Baathism 
     (nobody has ever spoken such nonsense) and said that if 
     General Petraeus was Iraqi he would have been charged under 
     the Debaathification law.''
       In an interview with the Times (U.K.), Petraeus pointedly 
     noted that al-Lami's panel has been linked with Iran's 
     Revolutionary Guard. And on Tuesday, Gen. Ray Odierno, the 
     senior U.S. commander in Iraq, identified al-Lami as one of 
     two Iraqi politicians ``clearly . . . influenced by Iran.''
       The ``surge'' implemented by Petraeus, Odierno, and their 
     troops was largely responsible for the defeat of al-Qaeda in 
     Iraq--the battlefield Osama bin Laden considered more 
     consequential than any other. But Iran's proxy militias 
     fought U.S. troops, too. And many Americans were killed by 
     explosive devices manufactured in Iran and sent to Iraq for 
     that purpose.
       Yet Iran's contribution to the bloodshed in Iraq was 
     consistently downplayed. To highlight it would have led to 
     the question: ``So what are you going to do about it?'' And 
     the Bush administration did not want to do anything about 
     it--just as the Clinton administration did not want to do 
     anything about Iran's role in the slaughter of American 
     servicemen at Khobar Towers in 1996, just as the Reagan 
     administration did not want to do anything about Iran's 
     dispatching of Hezbollah suicide-bombers to kill Americans in 
     Beirut in 1983, and just as the Carter administration did not 
     want to do anything about the seizure of the American Embassy 
     in Tehran in 1979.
       Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 
     Islamic Revolution, concluded: ``America cannot do a damn 
     thing!'' The phrase has been repeated by Iranian rulers ever 
     since.
       President Obama ought to break with this pattern of 
     fecklessness. He should show Iran that there are consequences 
     for facilitating the deaths of Americans, for sponsoring 
     terrorism, for building nuclear weapons, for ruthlessly 
     oppressing Iranians at home, and for undermining the election 
     process in Iraq. At the very least, Obama should slow down 
     the pace of American troop withdrawals in Iraq and impose 
     serious sanctions--the kind envisioned by the legislation 
     recently passed by both the House and the Senate.
       But Biden said nothing about sanctions to Larry King. 
     Instead he told him (and any Iranians who might be 
     listening): ``You're going to see 90,000 American troops come 
     marching home by the end of the summer.'' The vice president 
     added: ``You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that 
     is actually moving toward a representative government. I 
     spent--I've been there 17 times now. I go about every two 
     months--three months. I know every one of the major players 
     in all the segments of that society. It's impressed me. I've 
     been impressed how they have been deciding to use the 
     political process rather than guns to settle their 
     differences.''
       True: Biden has been a frequent flier to Iraq, where he has 
     argued against the banning of candidates who displease 
     Tehran. Also true: He might as well have been talking to a 
     wall.
       Iraq remains what it has been: a pivotal nation in the 
     heart of the Middle East. Biden may think he and his 
     administration have achieved something there. Obama may see 
     Iraq as a distraction from the war against ``the real enemy'' 
     in Afghanistan. Conservatives may view Iraq as a success 
     Obama inherited from the Bush administration--and therefore 
     no longer their problem.
       All these views are wrong. It would be a cruel irony--not 
     to mention a terrible defeat--if the sacrifices Americans 
     have made were, in the end, to produce an Iraq dominated by 
     Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud 
     Ahmadinijad, enemies of Iraq, freedom, and democracy--enemies 
     sworn to bringing about a ``world without America.''
       Why don't Biden and Obama recognize that? And why are their 
     critics not more vocal about the fact that they do not?

                          ____________________