[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 5947]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        AMERICA MUST RESIST TEMPTATION TO START A WAR WITH IRAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dent). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I know it is an election year, and I know 
President Bush's ratings are at an all-time low, and I know gas prices 
are very high and the people are restless. Nevertheless, I call upon my 
colleagues and the President to resist the temptation to start yet 
another war.
  There is an old saying: ``Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, 
shame on me.'' Well, friends, if we fall for the case being made to go 
to war against Iran, it will be ``shame on us.'' And I define bombing 
from 40,000 feet as war.
  Just as we did in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, a 
country which had no connection to 9/11 and no weapons of mass 
destruction, this administration intentionally confused us with regard 
to Iraq. It is doing the same with Iran. The administration says they 
want compliance with nuclear treaties but makes it clear that they 
really will settle for nothing less than regime change.
  When I said before the Iraq war that I believed the President would 
be willing to mislead us into the war if he believed misleading us was 
necessary to fulfill his plans, I was excoriated, but I was right. I do 
not characterize the President's motives. I assume he took us into war 
in Iraq because he sincerely believed it was the right thing to do. We 
know now that he was wrong about that. The world is less safe. The 
Iraqis are in turmoil. More Americans have died in the President's plan 
in Iraq than died in New York City and at the Pentagon.
  What the President did with our Iraq policy is being replicated with 
our Iran policy. There was much to criticize about Saddam Hussein, and 
there is much to criticize about the ayatollahs and their front men in 
Iran. We have every right to demand that Iran adhere to its obligations 
under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to pursue sanctions and 
other penalties. What we do not have the right to do is to make it 
impossible for Iran to satisfy our demands without regime change.
  When we started demanding regime change in Iraq instead of demanding 
compliance with U.N. inspectors, we put ourselves on the path to war in 
Iraq. We are on the same plan and the same path in Iran. We will not 
talk with the Iranian government, and we will not stop talking about 
overthrowing it. It is impossible for the Iranian government to satisfy 
this administration and remain a government, although this 
administration will immediately deny that.
  Every time it appears something is going to work out with the Soviet 
Union, or whatever, we pull the rug out from the negotiators. Because 
we don't want negotiation. We don't want to solve the problem. We want 
regime change. Somehow this administration has got it in its head that 
it has the right to tell other governments to step aside for people we 
like better. That is wrong.
  We tried it with Mosaddegh and put in the Shah and we are back at it 
again. What we should do instead is to call their bluff and let them 
save face at the same time. If they say they want nuclear energy, we 
should say, okay, if it is nuclear energy you want, you won't mind 
having wall-to-wall U.N. inspectors watching every move you make to 
keep people from getting the wrong idea.
  We make sure that they can't build bombs and let them have what they 
are entitled to under the NPT: civilian energy. We must quit making the 
leaders more popular. And we are doing it by making them the guys who 
stand up to the U.S. We must quit acting like we are going to invade 
any country that has the wrong regime.
  If we attack Iran, as I fear we are on a course to do, we will 
unleash a hell unlike anything this region has seen. Iran is not Iraq. 
It has not been under sanctions for 10 years. It has not been bombed 
flat by the Gulf War. It is a strong nation with weapons. We will make 
ourselves once again less safe if we attack them.
  Mr. Speaker, this administration has now been told on this floor, in 
public, on the record. The President will come here in about 6 or 8 or 
9 months and give us a State of the Union. If he has taken us into a 
war in Iran, he will deserve what happens.
  This country does not need another war. We have already proven the 
failure of that in Iraq; and because they won't change their mind, they 
keep doing the same thing over and over again. And now there is an 
election coming up. The 2006 election is coming and they want to 
distract us. That is why they are leading us towards Iran.

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