[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 83 (Wednesday, June 12, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4355-S4356]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMMIGRATION REFORM
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to address two issues this morning,
but starting with the issue that is confronting us here on the Senate
floor. It is a great challenge, but it is also a great opportunity;
that is, immigration. The opportunity we have to come together in the
Senate, Democrats and Republicans, is to fix a broken system and to
help our economy.
Along the way, as we are working through the immigration bill over
the next days and weeks, I think we can not only get this issue on the
right track substantively but we can also send a very strong message to
the American people that on major consequential issues for the American
people we can come together, work together, and get a good result for
them. I think that in and of itself is worthy of a lot of attention.
Syria
But even as we are working on immigration, of course we have to
concern ourselves with a whole range of other issues. One I will speak
to briefly this morning is the issue of our policies as they relate to
Syria. We are confronted this morning with a headline in the Washington
Post. I will hold it up. It reads: ``Iran On Ascent As Syria Churns.''
The first page of the Post. I will read the first paragraph of this
story:
As fighters with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement wage the
battles that are helping Syria's regime survive, their chief
sponsor, Iran, is emerging as the biggest victor in the wider
regional struggle for influence that the Syrian conflict has
become.
There is one of the reasons why I and others, for not just weeks but
months now, have been urging the administration and the Congress to
come together on a more focused and more effective strategy as it
relates to Syria. We had a good bipartisan effort in the Foreign
Relations Committee. We were able to pass out of the committee
legislation that dealt with Syria that would provide a whole range of
supports and efforts that will lead to a better result in Syria.
I know the White House has spent the last couple of weeks and will be
spending even more time today to come up with a policy that makes
sense. But I do not think we can any longer pretend this issue is not
an issue that concerns our national security, because every day the
Iranian regime and Hezbollah plot against us. Anything that results in
the regime in Iran being strengthened, as the Washington Post points to
today in this story, is bad for our national security.
We have a lot of work to do. Again, this should be bipartisan. But
the administration needs to focus on Syria and come to a conclusion
about the way forward that will be in the best interests of our
national security and also in the best interests of the people of Syria
who are fighting valiantly against the Asad regime.
We all agree the Asad regime should not be in power, but we can't
just wish that. We will have to take the steps that will lead to that
result in a concerted fashion with allies in the region.
I ask unanimous consent the story entitled ``Iran on ascent as Syria
churns'' from the Washington Post this morning be made part of the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed, in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, June 12, 2013]
Iran Emerging as Victor in Syrian Conflict
(By Liz Sly)
Beirut.--As fighters with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement wage
the battles that are helping Syria's regime survive, their
chief sponsor, Iran, is emerging as the biggest victor in the
wider regional struggle for influence that the Syrian
conflict has become.
With top national security aides set to meet at the White
House on Wednesday to reassess options in light of recent
setbacks for the rebels seeking Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad's ouster, the long-term outcome of the war remains far
from assured, analysts and military experts say.
But after the Assad regime's capture of the small but
strategic town of Qusair last week--a battle in which the
Iranian-backed Shiite militia played a pivotal role--Iran's
supporters and foes alike are mulling a new reality: that the
regional balance of power appears to be tilting in favor of
Tehran, with potentially profound implications for a Middle
East still grappling with the upheaval wrought by the Arab
Spring revolts.
``This is an Iranian fight. It is no longer a Syrian one,''
said Mustafa Alani, director of security and defense at the
Dubai-based Gulf Research Council. ``The issue is hegemony in
the region.''
The ramifications extend far beyond the borders of Syria,
whose location at the heart of the Middle East puts it
astride most of the region's fault lines, from the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict to the disputes left over from the U.S.
occupation of Iraq, from the perennial sectarian tensions in
Lebanon to Turkey's aspirations to restore its Ottoman-era
reach into the Arab world.
An Iran emboldened by the unchecked exertion of its
influence in Syria would also be emboldened in other arenas,
Alani said, including the negotiations over its nuclear
program, as well as its ambitions in Iraq, Lebanon and
beyond.
``If Iran wins this conflict and the Syrian regime
survives, Iran's interventionist policy will become wider and
its credibility will be enhanced,'' he added.
From Iran's point of view, sustaining Assad's regime also
affirms Iran's control over a corridor of influence
stretching from Tehran through Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut
to Maroun al-Ras, a hilltop town on Lebanon's southern border
that offers a commanding view of northern Israel, according
to Mohammad Obaid, a Lebanese political analyst with close
ties to Hezbollah.
Iran has sought to minimize its visible involvement in
Syria so as not to exacerbate sectarian tensions that have
been inflamed by a conflict pitting an overwhelmingly Sunni
opposition against a regime dominated by Assad's minority
Shiite-affiliated sect, Obaid said.
Iran has provided advice, money and arms to Assad's regime,
but the manpower needed to bolster his forces, flagging after
two years of trying to contain the revolt, has come from
Hezbollah, which was founded in the 1980s with help from
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and has become Lebanon's
leading military and political force.
``Hezbollah is part of the Iranian strategy,'' Obaid said.
``This counts as a victory for the group of Iran, Syria, Iraq
and Hezbollah against the group backed by the United
States.''
[[Page S4356]]
`Iran walked the walk'
Supporters of the Syrian opposition contrast the hesitancy
of the U.S. administration in offering arms to the outgunned,
poorly trained and deeply divided rebels with the commitment
that Iran has shown to its Damascus ally.
The U.S. goal was to pressure Assad into making concessions
at the negotiating table, without delivering a resounding
military victory to the rebels that might have brought
Islamists to power in Damascus, said Amr al-Azm, a history
professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio who is Syrian
and is active in the opposition. Instead, a proposed peace
conference in Geneva seems likely to be held on Assad's
terms, should it go ahead.
``Politically we're screwed, and militarily we're taking a
pounding,'' Azm said. ``America talked the talk while Iran
walked the walk.''
This would not be the first time that Iran has
outmaneuvered the United States since the Iranian revolution
brought Shiite clerics to power in Tehran in 1979. But the
assertion of Shiite power in Syria rankles Sunnis across the
region, compounding the dangers that the Syrian conflict
could provoke a wider and even bloodier war than the one
currently underway, which is estimated to have killed at
least 80,000 people.
Escalating violence in Iraq and growing tensions in
Lebanon, whose conflicts are inextricably intertwined with
the increasingly sectarian nature of the war in Syria,
underscore the risk that centuries-old religious rivalries
between Sunnis and Shiites will be aggravated by Iran's role.
The leading religious authority in Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda
chief Ayman al-Zawahiri have in the past week called on
Sunnis to volunteer to fight in Syria, marking a potentially
dangerous convergence that could herald an intensified influx
of Sunni jihadis.
Saudi Arabia's role
Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni power in the region and
Washington's closest Arab ally, is unlikely to tolerate an
ascendant Iran even if the United States chooses to remain
aloof, said Jamal Khashoggi, director of the al-Arab
television channel.
``It is a serious blow in the face of Saudi Arabia, and I
don't think the Saudis will accept it. They will do
something, whether on their own or with America,'' he said.
``Syria is the heart of the Arab world, and for it to be
officially conquered by the Iranians is unacceptable.''
One way in which Saudi Arabia could influence the outcome
is by facilitating unchecked supplies of arms to the rebels,
analysts say. Although the umbrella Free Syrian Army has
received small quantities of weaponry from Turkey, Saudi
Arabia and Qatar over the past year, the United States has
sought to control the flow, vetting the recipients and
restricting the caliber of the weapons provided.
After videos surfaced in March of Islamist groups wielding
antitank weapons funneled across the Jordanian border by
Saudi Arabia, the United States imposed a freeze on all
further deliveries, putting the rebels at a disadvantage just
as Iran, through Hezbollah, was gearing up to rejuvenate the
Assad regime's army with reinforcements, according to rebel
leaders.
A symbolic battle
Military analysts caution against overestimating the impact
of the rebel defeat in Qusair on what is likely to be a long
and unpredictable war. The obscure western town abutting
Hezbollah-controlled territory in Lebanon almost certainly
offered an easier conquest than other rebel strongholds, such
as the city of Aleppo, where the regime is touting an
imminent offensive.
The rebels are continuing to press attacks in the northern,
eastern and southern peripheries of the country even as the
government appears to be tightening its grip on the central
provinces of Damascus and Homs, raising the specter that the
country will be partitioned into enclaves backed by rival
Sunni and Shiite regional powers. A suicide bombing in
Damascus on Tuesday highlighted the likelihood that the
rebels will sustain an insurgency similar to the one that
persists in Iraq even if they are defeated militarily.
The chief significance of the battle for Qusair lay in the
powerful symbolism of the role played by Hezbollah, which
eliminated any doubt that the Syrian conflict has turned into
a proxy war for regional influence, said Charles Lister, an
analyst with IHS Jane's defense consultancy in London.
``External actors are becoming increasingly decisive and
pivotal in terms of where the conflict is going,'' he said.
And if the United States increased its support for the
rebels, Assad's allies would be likely to boost theirs, he
added.
``The conflict has regionalized, and, unfortunately, that
gives it the potential to drag on longer,'' he said. ``As
long as one side increases its assistance, the other will see
the need to do so, too.''
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