[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 22899]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        WAR AND THE MIDDLE EAST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, the President has repeatedly said that 
he is not interested in engaging in Iran in an effort to stabilize 
Iraq. There is a tragic irony in the President's intransigence. While 
the President is unwilling to talk to Iran, his policies in Iraq, in 
reality, are allowing Iran to take over Iraq. But if we don't recognize 
and act on this soon, Iran will succeed.
  This is real, it is not rhetorical. Actions by the President, through 
his appointed surrogate to run Iraq, Paul Bremer, that date back to the 
first days of the U.S. invasion, have created a situation today that 
makes Iraq a prime candidate for what Iran could never accomplish on 
its own militarily; that is, taking over Iraq, its oil, its 
infrastructure, even its existence as a separate Nation. Iran couldn't 
successfully invade Iraq, but we did, and now we are playing right into 
the hands of the Iranians by not acting on what Iraqis see happening.
  The media portrays an overly simplistic picture of sectarian 
struggle. We hear a lot about Shi'a and Sunni Iraqis, but we don't hear 
about Persians; that is, Iran and the Persian versus Arab is where the 
real battle for Iraq will be won or lost. Every time the President 
meets with Iranian Shi'a clerics, or those connected or controlled by 
them, he confirms in the Iraqi-Arab minds, both Shi'a and Sunni, that 
he is ceding control to the Iranians.
  It began with Bremer's decision to give the Shi'a control of the 
governing council. Then his decision to disband the Iraqi Army and the 
Baathist technocrat government further confirmed to the Arabs the 
feeling that the United States, despite its protests to the contrary, 
was opening up Iraq to an Iranian takeover. The borders were open.
  This is not my speculation, this is what moderate leaders in the 
Middle East told me in face-to-face meetings I attended in Amman, 
Jordan recently. Moderate leaders desperately want the American people 
to understand what is really going on, because they see that as perhaps 
their last hope of getting our President to see.
  To the Iraqi Arabs, there are only two explanations to account for 
Paul Bremer's actions: a blunder based upon ignorance of the history of 
the region, or a deliberate decision to neutralize Iraq as a strong 
Arab secular nation, thereby making it more susceptible to U.S. 
influence in the future.
  Moderates in the region see it this way. The President, and therefore 
America, continues to openly act in ways that enable an Iranian 
takeover. Just the other day, the President met with the leader of the 
Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdul Aziz Hakim, in the 
White House. He is controlled and tied to the Iranians. This comes on 
the heels of the President's meeting and endorsement of al-Maliki.
  Meeting with Iranian-controlled Iraqis, no matter what sect they 
belong to, confirms to many in the region that the President doesn't 
understand the current situation. Moderates told me the resistance in 
Iraq is based on the U.S. occupation and a power grab by the Iranian-
controlled clerics. Blaming it all on Sunni-Shi'a tensions is not just 
incorrect, they say, it is exactly what Iran hopes for, because it 
leaves them hidden.
  Here is another example. Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shi'a leader, left the 
coalition with the Iranian-controlled SCIRI and joined the Arab Sunnis. 
Al-Sadr strongly opposes the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and some see the 
meeting between the President and the Iranian leader of SCIRI as only 
deepening the passions against the United States. Friends of the United 
States in the region, and even foes, believe the same.
  To many in the region, one only need look at history to understand. 
Arabs and Persians have fought for centuries before Islam even existed, 
and their enmity remains intense. Persians are the Iranians. Arabs are 
the ones in Iraq. Failure by the President to understand it is Persian 
versus Arab or Iran versus Iraq that is going on, has produced one 
disastrous decision after another. The solution, they believe, is 
obvious. Strategically, redeploy the U.S. troops out of Baghdad, out of 
the cities, and onto the Iranian border to stop the infiltration of 
Iranian agents into Iraq.
  Some Arab leaders told me they estimate as many as 14,000 Persians, 
Iranians, have infiltrated to run death squads who are killing the Arab 
Sunnis and inciting a civil war as cover for the real war that is Iran 
versus Iraq.
  Unless we change the course, unless we draw back our troops out to 
the borders in preparation for ultimately leaving the country, the day 
will come when the only banner proclaiming ``mission accomplished'' 
will be flown by Iran. We can't let that happen. We have to change the 
course. The President must see this is not a sectarian fight between 
Shi'a and Sunni, it is between Iraq and Iran. They fought for 8 years, 
just recently, and now they are doing it again, and we have allowed 
them, the Iranians, to have the goal of making it happen.

                          ____________________