[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1632]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
             PREVENTING IRAN FROM OBTAINING NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Madam Speaker, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear 
weapons ought to be the number one foreign policy objective of the 
United States. A nuclear Iran would spark region-wide nuclear 
proliferation. In fact, (Saudi Arabia and its allies have already 
announced that they are beginning a nuclear program to respond to what 
Iran is doing). Further, if the Iranian Government were close to being 
overthrown, and some of us look forward to that day, it could smuggle a 
nuclear weapon into the United States--either in an effort to reassert 
popularity with its own people, or with the idea that they would rather 
go out with a bang.
  Now, we cannot stop Iran's nuclear program just by meeting with 
Iranian emissaries. Secretary Rice has offered to meet with 
representatives of the Iranian Government anywhere, at any time, to 
discuss any agenda--so long as during the talks Iran suspends uranium 
enrichment, just as Iran suspended uranium enrichment when they were 
talking with European leaders. The refusal of Iran to suspend uranium 
enrichment, even for a few days in order to speak with Secretary Rice, 
speaks loudly about their willingness and desire to speak with us.
  Likewise, we cannot stop Iran's nuclear program by making unilateral 
concessions to Iran. We did that in the year 2000. We opened our 
markets to everything Iran would want to export to us, except oil--
things like carpets and dried fruit. In fact, we opened our markets to 
everything we didn't need, and they couldn't sell anywhere else. The 
result in public was nasty comments from the Iranian foreign minister. 
In private what they did was redouble their efforts to obtain nuclear 
weapons, and provide assistance to the 9/11 hijackers, according to the 
9/11 Commission, though they apparently didn't know the exact mission 
of those they were assisting.
  But we can block Iran's nuclear program only if we can pass extreme 
Security Council sanctions. The mere adoption of strong sanctions at 
the United Nations would be of enormous political impact on the people 
of Iran. A ban on selling Iran refined petroleum products would 
dislocate its economy and bring enormous popular pressure on the 
Government of Iran, because although Iran exports petroleum, it doesn't 
have the refining capacity--and therefore is dependent on imports for 
almost half of its gasoline.
  So how do we get these very extreme U.N. Security Council sanctions? 
Only with a dramatic change in Russia's policy.
  Now, our current approach to securing that critical Russian support 
has been very ineffective, and we have achieved only token sanctions 
that Tehran can laugh off.
  The only way to get the kind of Russian support we need is by 
offering real changes on our policy toward issues in Russia's own 
geographic region--issues Russia cares a lot about, issues not of great 
significance to most of us in the United States. Our efforts to 
convince Russia to change its Iran policy only because, well, they 
ought to do it, have been remarkably unsuccessful. We need to address 
Russia's concerns to change their policy toward Iran's nuclear weapons.
  In particular, we may need to offer to make modest changes in our 
policies towards such issues as the Russian-speaking peoples of 
Moldova, Latvia and Estonia, the route of Caspian Sea oil pipelines, 
and Chechnya and Abkhazia.
  Now, the State Department bureaucracy is prejudiced towards this 
approach for three reasons: First, a bureaucracy has bureaus, and they 
have got an Abkhazia bureau that doesn't want its interests sacrificed 
for some more important national security priority. Second, there are 
those in the administration with such an almost faith-based excessive 
estimate of our national power. They think we can achieve all of our 
national objectives and that we don't have to sacrifice or delay any of 
them. Finally, many of America's foreign policy experts grew up in the 
Soviet era. They spent their time strategizing how to encircle and 
weaken Russia. And, Madam Speaker, old habits die hard.
  Nothing is more important to America's national security than an all-
out diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

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