[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 15 (Tuesday, January 26, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S138-S140]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Nomination of Antony John Blinken

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, today we will be considering the nomination 
of Antony Blinken to be President Biden's Secretary of State.
  The problem I have with this nomination is that, for decades now, we 
have been at war in Afghanistan. The war is now called ``the forever 
war.'' People lament that it goes on so long, and people say: How could 
it possibly keep going on?
  Sixty-five to seventy percent of the American people, 65 to 70 
percent of American veterans--veterans who served in the theater--say 
the war is enough. We should end the war in Afghanistan. How does it go 
on? We have got a new President. Are things going to change?
  Here is the problem: Why do the wars continue? Why do the wars in 
Syria and Libya and Somalia and Afghanistan continue? Because the more 
things change, the more they stay the same.
  Mr. Blinken has been a full-throated advocate of military 
intervention in the Middle East for 20 years. We are fooling ourselves 
if we think we are going to get a new policy. We are going to get more 
of the same.
  In his hearing, I said to him: ``The problem isn't that we don't 
compromise or that we don't have bipartisan consensus; the problem is 
we have too much bipartisan consensus for war.''
  For 20 years, he has advocated for military intervention. He 
advocated for the Iraq war, as did the President. President Biden was 
also an advocate of the Iraq war.
  Now, later on they said: Well, the war wasn't that great of an idea, 
but we were lied to by George Bush and the intelligence, and I am 
willing to admit there is some truth to that. But there is a bigger 
lesson here. The lesson is that regime change doesn't work.
  They often get unintended consequences, and you often get the 
opposite of what you think you are getting. They said: We must go to 
Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein because he is a terrible dictator. Well, 
yes, he was a despot, a dictator, an autocrat. You know, he wreaked 
havoc on his people, probably gassed the Kurds--many different horrible 
things. And yet, when he was gone, what did we get? We got a power 
vacuum. We got more terrorism. We are back in there 10 years later 
because the government is nonfunctional. And what is the final result? 
Iran is stronger.
  What does everybody talk about? Iran, Iran, Iran. Why do we worry 
about Iran? Well, because we toppled their biggest adversary. We used 
to have a balance of power between Iraq and Iran--despot on one side, 
despot on the other but at least a balance of power.
  But who is Iran's best ally now? Iraq. Think about it. Iraq is allied 
with Iran. Iraq is also allied, in many ways, with Russia, as well as 
us, but they have also asked us to leave. They are like: Oh, thanks for 
our freedom, but you all can take off now.
  But who supported the war? President Biden, Antony Blinken. We are 
back where we were 20 years ago.
  Now, like I say, there is some retrenchment, there is some backing 
off of the position, but I don't hear from either President Biden, 
Candidate Biden, or from Antony Blinken that regime change is wrong.
  Now, if it were wrong, you would expect there was a learning from the 
Iraq war, and they would say: OK. Now that we are in charge, we won't 
do the same.
  But it turns out, when we had an Obama administration, with Blinken 
and the other military interventionists, in a supposedly progressive 
administration, we got more war. They went into Libya. Once again, the 
same sort of idea--the idea that regime change works, and that we will 
topple this terrible dictator, Qadhafi, and out of the mist, out of the 
embers, out of the fire will arise Thomas Jefferson. The Thomas 
Jefferson of Libya will take over and freedom will reign. It didn't 
work out so much.
  So Mr. Blinken, in his hearing, admitted as much. He said: Well, 
maybe we overestimated the possibility that there would be rivals to 
replace him. Do you think?
  But, see, this is sort of the expected pattern of the Middle East. 
The Middle East doesn't have this 1,000-year English tradition of 
trying to control central power, dating back to even before the Magna 
Carta.
  But even 350 years ago, the English had a revolution trying to 
restrain the power of the King; 250 years ago we had our revolution to 
further restrain the power of the King. We have this longstanding 
tradition.
  But in the Middle East, there is more of this tradition of tribalism, 
and so you have an iron fist, but when you get rid of the iron fist, it 
is replaced by another iron fist or nothing--by chaos.
  So in Libya you get rid of Qadhafi--supported by President Obama Vice 
President Biden, Antony Blinken. You have the toppling of Qadhafi, but 
what did you get? Chaos. More terrorism. It is unclear even whom we 
support--whether we support the current government, the U.N. 
government, or General Haftar, or whom we support.

  The Middle East is divided, arms are flowing in on both sides, and 
like we always do, we fan the flames by shipping arms to everybody in 
the region as well. It didn't work.
  So Mr. Blinken acknowledges: Yes, we underestimated the possibility 
there would be a rival government or a rival faction strong enough to 
rule Libya. Well, yeah.
  So did they learn their lesson? No. About this time or a little bit 
later, they decided: We must go into Syria. So they spent about $500 
million--$500 million--to train about 60 fighters. They did it in a 
remote area of Syria and they got them trained and they spent their 
$500 million and they sent 10 of them into battle. They were all 
captured or killed in the first 20 minutes. Five hundred million to 
train sixty of the so-called moderates. But guess what. The same holds 
for Syria that held for Iraq, that held for Libya, that now holds for 
Syria. Guess what. Another despot.
  But who are the people fighting against the despot? The most fierce 
fighters in Syria all along were al-Nusra and al-Qaida. The more 
jihadists, the more vicious and violent and the better the fighters 
were.
  Were there doctors and lawyers and academics and people who want a 
secular form of government? Sure. But the people out there fighting and 
the people winning the battles were the jihadists.
  So there was always the danger, if you get rid of Assad, we get 
another jihadist regime.
  So we have to think through the policy of this. But Blinken and Biden 
both supported the Iraq war. It was an utter failure. They admit as 
much. They supported the Libyan deposing of Qadhafi and war. Then they 
acknowledge: Well, maybe it wasn't the best--but then they don't take 
any learning or knowledge from that and say: Maybe we shouldn't go into 
the next one--Syria. And yet, they went into Syria.
  And what Blinken's response is should tell you a little bit about the 
danger of what we may get from Blinken as Secretary of State.
  He said the problem in Syria was not doing too much but doing too 
little. He said: What we really should have done is gone in with full 
might. If we had put 100,000 troops in there, like we did in 
Afghanistan and like we did in Iraq, if we would have used sufficient 
enough force, we could have toppled Assad. But in the end, he said: We 
didn't do enough.
  So the lesson to Blinken and Biden and this administration isn't that 
regime change doesn't work; it is that if we are going to do it, we 
need to go bigger. We need to go all in.
  I would posit that regime change doesn't work; that we should not 
support evil regimes. If they are despots or dictators, we shouldn't 
arm them. But I am not for toppling every one of them

[[Page S139]]

either because I am not so sure what you get next.
  So how would this be in the real world? Saudi Arabia has shown 
themselves to be an autocratic, anti-woman, anti-modern administration 
that would actually kill a journalist and dismember him. They were 
rewarded by the previous administration with arms. Terrible idea.
  But what would we do if there was a rational, realistic--more realism 
in foreign policy? We would not topple the Government of Saudi Arabia, 
but we might not sell them arms. I think that would be a reasonable 
thing.
  We also might not sell them arms because they were committing 
atrocities and killing civilians in the war in Yemen. But if you look 
back at the war in Yemen, the Obama-Biden administration did not have 
very strong opposition to the war in Yemen. They do now, but in the 
beginning, they didn't.
  And so the supplying of weaponry and bombs and smart bombs to Saudi 
Arabia occurred under the Obama-Biden administration and then continued 
under the Trump administration.
  So we have to ask ourselves: We have so many unintended consequences; 
how will we ever make things different?
  Now, our Founding Fathers envisioned something different. Our 
Founding Fathers envisioned that war should be difficult. It was James 
Madison who said that the executive branch is most prone to war and, 
therefore, the Constitution, with studied care, vested that power in 
the legislature. To declare war was to be split between the House and 
the Senate and by a majority vote to declare war. We don't do that. It 
is passe. Oh, that is an anachronism, some say.
  And when Antony Blinken was asked about this, when he was asked about 
a use of authorization of force--he was asked: Do you need it? And this 
was when he was working for the Obama-Biden administration. And he 
said: Oh, we would welcome discussion and debate and advice from the 
Senate, but, you know, we don't really need it.
  Now, he is not alone in this. This isn't a Democratic or Republican 
thing. This is most of the foreign policy establishment in both 
parties, particularly once they work for a President. They will tell 
you, yes, they will listen to your advice. Oh, we really welcome your 
coming down. Please come down. We would love to sit down and have tea. 
But, really, don't tell us what to do. We can do whatever we want under 
article II.
  And you think, well gosh, that sounds harsh. It sounds like you are 
describing Blinken as some sort of John Bolton. Yeah. There are 
similarities, but there are similarities between both parties when they 
get to the executive branch that they don't think they need Congress's 
permission. This is a real problem.
  So some in the Senate have tried to narrow the definition of where a 
war would be, and I looked at their narrower definition last time and I 
said: Well, yeah, you would narrow it from the whole world to 24 
countries. I don't want to be at war in those 24 countries either.
  Think about it. We have more military action in Africa right now than 
we do in the Middle East. Somalia, Mali, all throughout Africa we have 
got troops.
  We had four soldiers die a little over a year ago in Mali, and people 
were like: We have 800 soldiers in Mali? No one even knew. People on 
the Armed Services Committee were like: We have 800 soldiers in Mali? 
And yet that goes on without our permission. Without a vote of the 
people's representatives, without consulting the people at all, it just 
goes on and on and on.
  So my opposition of Mr. Blinken to be Secretary of State is not so 
much because I oppose the administration; it is because I oppose the 
bipartisan consensus for war.
  If we are ever to end these wars, we are going to need to not keep 
nominating the same retreads who have gotten us into these wars.
  So I will vote against Mr. Blinken because I am against war. I am 
against war that is not declared by Congress. I am against war that is 
executed primarily by the President. I am against them doing it without 
the permission of the people.
  So I will oppose Mr. Blinken's nomination. I don't think I will get 
many people from the other side. It is difficult to vote against 
nominees of one's own party, but I will say that if we are ever to end 
war, we need to have a real discussion in this body about when we go to 
war, whether or not we have to declare war, and we have to talk about 
whether our involvements have worked in the Middle East, whether or not 
there are unintended consequences. Instead of saying ``Oh, it was all 
George Bush's fault. It was faulty intelligence''--yeah, yeah, there is 
some truth to that, but it is really about regime change. It is about 
the idea that we know what is best for everyone else and that by 
putting a new regime involved in a country in the Middle East, somehow 
it is going to be better. It usually turns out worse.

  So I hope my colleagues will today consider voting against Mr. 
Blinken because I think he is more of the same.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 
minutes on the nomination of Tony Blinken for Secretary of State.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I bring to the floor this morning the 
nomination of Tony Blinken to be Secretary of State. He has been 
nominated, of course, by President Biden, and this is brought by 
Senator Menendez and me. We have had the honored privilege of working 
together to move as rapidly as we could Mr. Blinken's nomination. 
Obviously, these things do take some time, and we are fortunate to be 
able to bring it as quickly as we have to the floor.
  This is, in my judgment, certainly the most important nominee that 
there will be to the President's Cabinet in light of a number of things 
but not the least of which is they are in the line of succession for 
the Presidency.
  Mr. Blinken has a long and distinguished history when it comes to 
statecraft and foreign relations matters. Certainly, he is very 
qualified for this job. Obviously, we don't agree on all things. Nobody 
ever does.
  I will say that there are 200 countries, approximately, on the 
planet, and each one of them has unique and very distinguished issues.
  In speaking with Mr. Blinken on these matters, I find that there is a 
tremendous amount of agreement that he and I have. Obviously, whenever 
these things happen, there are areas of disagreement, and obviously the 
media and a lot of people focus on these.
  I should mention that at least one of those--Iran--is a very wide 
disagreement that we have. In my judgment, the JCPOA was a colossal 
failure and a real blunder for American policy overseas. In talking 
with Mr. Blinken, he does not share that view, and obviously he is 
going to work with the President, carrying the President's water to get 
us back into the JCPOA. I think that is a mistake. We have talked about 
this at length, and certainly whatever the consequences of that are, 
those who do it are going to have to live with it.
  I can state that this is not a partisan issue. There are people on 
both sides of the aisle who have real reservations about going back 
into the JCPOA, particularly if there aren't very significant 
sideboards put on that. The effort is going to be made, and we will 
advise as we can and go down that pike.
  Again, I say that this is one issue. Out of the many, many issues 
that we discussed, there was very little--in fact, no daylight between 
us on some of them. A good example of that would be Turkey. I think Mr. 
Blinken shares my reservations about Turkey, and, again, the vast 
majority of this body, the U.S. Senate, has deep, deep reservations 
about the direction that Turkey is going.

  In any event, we need a Secretary of State, and this is the person 
for the job.
  With that, I yield the floor
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lujan). The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I just remark how quickly you have risen 
in the Senate. So we welcome you here.
  I rise today in support of Tony Blinken's nomination to be Secretary

[[Page S140]]

of State. I want to thank Senator Risch for working with me 
expeditiously to get this nomination to the floor, and I appreciate his 
work and common cause to achieve it.
  We all know Mr. Blinken has impressive credentials. He was confirmed 
by the Senate as Deputy Secretary of State, and before that, he served 
as the Deputy National Security Advisor and as the staff director at 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But apart from his extensive 
experience, he showed in almost 5 hours of hearing testimony that he is 
thoughtful, willing, able to grapple with the most complex challenging 
issues facing our country, and committed to engaging Congress, and he 
did so on both sides of the aisle.
  Not surprisingly, the Foreign Relations Committee reported him out by 
an overwhelming bipartisan vote.
  Now, some in this body may not be aware of Mr. Blinken's family 
tradition, which reflects the best of this country in two ways: our 
history of welcoming those in need of refuge and the contributions that 
immigrants and refugees have made in the service of our Nation.
  Mr. Blinken's family came here fleeing persecution. His grandfather, 
Maurice Blinken, fled Russian pogroms. His father's wife, Vera Blinken, 
fled communist Hungary, and his late stepfather, Samuel Pisar, survived 
Nazi concentration camps and met the first U.S. soldiers he saw with 
the only English words he knew: God bless America. And from that 
family, our country has benefitted from the service of two Ambassadors, 
an Assistant Secretary, and a Deputy Secretary of State--what a 
testament to the power of the American Dream.
  Mr. Blinken must be confirmed so we can start addressing the 
challenges we face abroad. Every day there is an event or calamity 
across the globe, and whether it is a massacre in Ethiopia or 
democratic protests in Russia, we need U.S. leadership and engagement 
to chart our foreign policy through these troubling times.
  We now have a COVID vaccine, but troubling new variants and strains 
are appearing in the United Kingdom and South Africa. We need a 
confirmed Secretary of State and a robust State Department to 
revitalize the traditional U.S. role as a leader on global health 
issues. This is just one of the many things we have to do to bring this 
pandemic to an end both in this country and abroad.
  It is also important that Mr. Blinken be confirmed to help address 
the challenges we face closer to home. The State Department is 
suffering from a historic crisis stemming from low morale, the 
departure over the past 4 years of many of our most experienced 
diplomats, and the lack of accountability for the political leadership 
at the top during the last 4 years. Mr. Blinken's experience and 
expertise is necessary to begin to repair the damage and rebuild the 
State Department.
  Moreover, the Office of Secretary of State is fourth in the 
Presidential line of succession and is one of the most important 
national security positions in the government. To paraphrase former 
Secretary of Defense James Mattis, if we do not support diplomacy, our 
Armed Forces will ultimately need more ammunition. He was right. Robust 
diplomacy means that we are less likely to have to send our sons and 
daughters to fight wars, and it means more opportunities for Americans 
and American businesses abroad.
  I strongly support Mr. Blinken's nomination today because he is the 
right person for the job and because we cannot afford to leave this 
post vacant any longer. I hope my colleagues will all join me.
  With that, I yield the floor.