[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 123 (Monday, July 29, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5529-S5530]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Terrorism

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the partners, puppets, and proxies of 
America's biggest adversaries spent a busy weekend repressing and 
killing innocent people.
  On Saturday, in the Golan Heights, Israeli Druze children were 
playing soccer when Hezbollah launched a rocket made in Iran and killed 
12 of them. On Sunday, Venezuela's communist dictator hijacked an 
election, promising the suffering people of his country even more 
brutal days to come.
  We live in a world where thuggish repression and terrorist violence 
are increasingly common. Tragically, the slaughter of innocent children 
by terrorists is not surprising. Neither, unfortunately, is a stooge of 
the world's most powerful authoritarian's tightening his own chokehold 
on power.
  But one thing doesn't ever get less shocking or alarming: the 
continued naivete with which our leaders respond. The Secretary of 
State says the Biden-Harris administration has ``serious concerns that 
the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the 
Venezuelan people.''

[[Page S5530]]

  Well, many of us have serious and longstanding concerns that the 
administration does not know how to credibly change the calculus of 
America's adversaries. Autocrats don't care about disapproving looks 
from Western diplomats.
  Don't believe me? Ask the mullahs in Tehran how worried they were 
about stern condemnations of their ongoing nuclear enrichment efforts.
  We certainly don't have to wonder whether promises of sanction relief 
from Washington succeeded in convincing Nicolas Maduro to permit a free 
and fair election.
  ``Concern'' is not a strategy. And speeches, for that matter, are not 
policy, especially when they are not backed by facts and by force.
  Last week, President Biden tooted the horn of his own foreign policy 
and declared proudly that ``the United States is not at war anywhere in 
the world.'' Well, that was news to America's servicemembers deployed 
in harm's way.
  The very next day, Iran-backed terrorists attacked U.S. personnel in 
Iraq and in Syria again. For months, at his orders, U.S. Navy 
destroyers have expended more than $1 billion in high-tech munitions to 
intercept the Houthis' Iran-made arsenal of missiles and drones in 
exchange for no measurable increase in deterrence.
  It is well and good to insist America is not at war, but a growing 
list of authoritarians, rogues, and strongmen are at war with us. The 
President's failure to respond decisively to threats may have let him 
believe we are not at war, but the same failure has emboldened our 
adversaries.
  Time and again, the Biden-Harris administration has limited support, 
agonized over perceived risks of escalation, and tried to micromanage 
the way our friends in Ukraine and Israel actually defend themselves. 
In Secretary Blinken's first public comment after Hezbollah's most 
recent strike, he insisted that ``we don't want to see it spread.'' 
Well, neither did Israel on October 6, before Hamas spread murderous 
violence into peaceful kibbutzim, in violation of a cease-fire 
agreement. And neither does Israel now, as its military continues to 
focus on finishing the job against Hamas and building the pressure 
necessary to secure a stable peace.
  There is simply no question Iran and its proxies are the instigators 
and aggressors in this conflict. They have planned and prepared this 
violence for years. And they will escalate, spread, and perpetuate it 
until it is no longer in their interests to do so.
  If the so-called international community wants an end to the war in 
Gaza and chaos in the region, they can do more than issue statements 
expressing concern about escalation. It is past time for civilized 
countries to present Tehran with cold consequences, with heavy pressure 
on the leaders responsible for the campaign of death and destruction 
across the Middle East. Instead, Western leaders have repeatedly blamed 
the victim.
  This is the message sent by Democrats who boycotted the joint address 
to Congress by the democratically elected Prime Minister of Israel. 
This is the message sent by their presumptive Presidential nominee who, 
instead of extending a hand of solidarity, pressured a friend and ally 
to cease military operations to defend itself.
  This sort of pressure will please the American left, but restraining 
Israel also pleases the butchers in Tehran.