[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 100 (Wednesday, June 25, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H5730]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IRAQ CANNOT BE LOST OR WON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Himes) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, over 60 years ago, the United States 
President sent advisers to a nation in Asia. He did so because a regime 
that was perceived as friendly to U.S. interests, but which was, in 
fact, deeply corrupt and rotten, was threatened.
  He promised that those advisers would not engage in combat, that they 
were there to protect American military equipment. Years later, with 
60,000 dead Americans and billions and billions of dollars expended, 
the helicopters lifted off from Saigon, and the Vietnamese regime fell.
  Today, another U.S. President is sending advisers to a nation in Asia 
and contemplating air strikes in a three-way civil war in Iraq. This 
President is doing it purportedly to preserve a nation which was the 
creation, as Secretary Albright says, of British and French diplomats 
lying to each other almost a hundred years ago.
  It is a Nation which, while we have paid gravely in blood and 
treasure to preserve, may not have the support of its own people.
  As usual, politics are intruding. The architects of the Iraq war 
under George W. Bush see the possibility of redemption for their 
mistakes, so unbelievably, they are accusing this President of losing 
Iraq.
  Let's be very clear: Iraq cannot be lost or won. A brutal dictator or 
the United States military can sit on top of conflicts between Sunni 
and Shiite and Saxon tribes that have roiled that society for 
centuries, but remove that dictator or remove the U.S. military, and 
those conflicts will reemerge.
  At the end of the day, it is Iraqis and Iraqis alone who have to 
decide whether their Nation will be preserved, whether there will be 
multiple countries reflecting multiple fates, or whether there will be 
one pluralistic nation. Whether they will live in the 21st century, the 
7th century, a caliphate, what kind of nation they will have is up for 
them to determine.
  There is an argument, of course, that ISIS--the terrorists who have 
made such astounding gains in regions of Iraq--are bad and brutal 
people. This is true. I sit on the Intelligence Committee and see, 
every day, the outrages that they perpetrate.
  They have made two mistakes: one, their brutality will ultimately be 
their undoing with their own people; and, second, they are now 
occupying territory--this means that they have addresses.
  Just as there are terrorists in Nigeria, in Somalia, in Libya, in 
Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Iran, in Egypt, and Morocco--the list 
goes on--there are terrorists in the Sunni areas of Iraq, but the 
answer cannot be that the United States military will be there to 
prevent them from doing what they would wish to do.
  Our interests--let's be clear about what our interests are--it must 
first and foremost be up to the citizens of those nations that I just 
listed to determine what sort of society they will live in. We cannot 
do it for them, and when we try, it does not end well.
  We must say to these nations that: if you work to craft an inclusive 
society respecting your minorities, respecting the rights of the 
individual and of women in particular, if you abide by international 
norms, we will be at your side. We did this 240 years ago, and we know 
a little something about how one might do it, and if not, we will not 
be at your side.
  Number two, our interest is to say to them that: if, in the birthing 
pains of your new societies, you nurture or support or in any way 
assist those terrorists that would target us or that would target our 
ally Israel or would target other civilized nations, we will find them, 
we will fix them, and we will take them off the battlefield, as we are 
doing around the world today.

                              {time}  1030

  Those are our national interests. Those goals are worth our time, our 
treasure, and our talent. Coaching a team in a three-way civil war is 
not.
  Colleagues, let us not expend one more dollar or one more life on 
military activity that is not in the clear service of our essential 
national interests.

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