[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8644-8645]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           IMMIGRATION REFORM

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to address two issues this morning, 
but starting with the issue that is confronting us here on the Senate 
floor. It is a great challenge, but it is also a great opportunity; 
that is, immigration. The opportunity we have to come together in the 
Senate, Democrats and Republicans, is to fix a broken system and to 
help our economy.
  Along the way, as we are working through the immigration bill over 
the next days and weeks, I think we can not only get this issue on the 
right track substantively but we can also send a very strong message to 
the American people that on major consequential issues for the American 
people we can come together, work together, and get a good result for 
them. I think that in and of itself is worthy of a lot of attention.


                                 Syria

  But even as we are working on immigration, of course we have to 
concern ourselves with a whole range of other issues. One I will speak 
to briefly this morning is the issue of our policies as they relate to 
Syria. We are confronted this morning with a headline in the Washington 
Post. I will hold it up. It reads: ``Iran On Ascent As Syria Churns.'' 
The first page of the Post. I will read the first paragraph of this 
story:

       As fighters with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement wage the 
     battles that are helping Syria's regime survive, their chief 
     sponsor, Iran, is emerging as the biggest victor in the wider 
     regional struggle for influence that the Syrian conflict has 
     become.

  There is one of the reasons why I and others, for not just weeks but 
months now, have been urging the administration and the Congress to 
come together on a more focused and more effective strategy as it 
relates to Syria. We had a good bipartisan effort in the Foreign 
Relations Committee. We were able to pass out of the committee 
legislation that dealt with Syria that would provide a whole range of 
supports and efforts that will lead to a better result in Syria.
  I know the White House has spent the last couple of weeks and will be 
spending even more time today to come up with a policy that makes 
sense. But I do not think we can any longer pretend this issue is not 
an issue that concerns our national security, because every day the 
Iranian regime and Hezbollah plot against us. Anything that results in 
the regime in Iran being strengthened, as the Washington Post points to 
today in this story, is bad for our national security.
  We have a lot of work to do. Again, this should be bipartisan. But 
the administration needs to focus on Syria and come to a conclusion 
about the way forward that will be in the best interests of our 
national security and also in the best interests of the people of Syria 
who are fighting valiantly against the Asad regime.
  We all agree the Asad regime should not be in power, but we can't 
just wish that. We will have to take the steps that will lead to that 
result in a concerted fashion with allies in the region.
  I ask unanimous consent the story entitled ``Iran on ascent as Syria 
churns'' from the Washington Post this morning be made part of the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed, in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, June 12, 2013]

               Iran Emerging as Victor in Syrian Conflict

                              (By Liz Sly)

       Beirut.--As fighters with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement wage 
     the battles that are helping Syria's regime survive, their 
     chief sponsor, Iran, is emerging as the biggest victor in the 
     wider regional struggle for influence that the Syrian 
     conflict has become.
       With top national security aides set to meet at the White 
     House on Wednesday to reassess options in light of recent 
     setbacks for the rebels seeking Syrian President Bashar al-
     Assad's ouster, the long-term outcome of the war remains far 
     from assured, analysts and military experts say.
       But after the Assad regime's capture of the small but 
     strategic town of Qusair last week--a battle in which the 
     Iranian-backed Shiite militia played a pivotal role--Iran's 
     supporters and foes alike are mulling a new reality: that the 
     regional balance of power appears to be tilting in favor of 
     Tehran, with potentially profound implications for a Middle 
     East still grappling with the upheaval wrought by the Arab 
     Spring revolts.
       ``This is an Iranian fight. It is no longer a Syrian one,'' 
     said Mustafa Alani, director of security and defense at the 
     Dubai-based Gulf Research Council. ``The issue is hegemony in 
     the region.''
       The ramifications extend far beyond the borders of Syria, 
     whose location at the heart of the Middle East puts it 
     astride most of the region's fault lines, from the Israeli-
     Palestinian conflict to the disputes left over from the U.S. 
     occupation of Iraq, from the perennial sectarian tensions in 
     Lebanon to Turkey's aspirations to restore its Ottoman-era 
     reach into the Arab world.
       An Iran emboldened by the unchecked exertion of its 
     influence in Syria would also be emboldened in other arenas, 
     Alani said, including the negotiations over its nuclear 
     program, as well as its ambitions in Iraq, Lebanon and 
     beyond.
       ``If Iran wins this conflict and the Syrian regime 
     survives, Iran's interventionist policy will become wider and 
     its credibility will be enhanced,'' he added.
       From Iran's point of view, sustaining Assad's regime also 
     affirms Iran's control over a corridor of influence 
     stretching from Tehran through Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut 
     to Maroun al-Ras, a hilltop town on Lebanon's southern border 
     that offers a commanding view of northern Israel, according 
     to Mohammad Obaid, a Lebanese political analyst with close 
     ties to Hezbollah.
       Iran has sought to minimize its visible involvement in 
     Syria so as not to exacerbate sectarian tensions that have 
     been inflamed by a conflict pitting an overwhelmingly Sunni 
     opposition against a regime dominated by Assad's minority 
     Shiite-affiliated sect, Obaid said.
       Iran has provided advice, money and arms to Assad's regime, 
     but the manpower needed to bolster his forces, flagging after 
     two years of trying to contain the revolt, has come from 
     Hezbollah, which was founded in the 1980s with help from 
     Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and has become Lebanon's 
     leading military and political force.
       ``Hezbollah is part of the Iranian strategy,'' Obaid said. 
     ``This counts as a victory for the group of Iran, Syria, Iraq 
     and Hezbollah against the group backed by the United 
     States.''


                         `Iran walked the walk'

       Supporters of the Syrian opposition contrast the hesitancy 
     of the U.S. administration in offering arms to the outgunned, 
     poorly trained and deeply divided rebels with the commitment 
     that Iran has shown to its Damascus ally.
       The U.S. goal was to pressure Assad into making concessions 
     at the negotiating table, without delivering a resounding 
     military victory to the rebels that might have brought 
     Islamists to power in Damascus, said Amr al-Azm, a history 
     professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio who is Syrian 
     and is active in the opposition. Instead, a proposed peace 
     conference in Geneva seems likely to be held on Assad's 
     terms, should it go ahead.

[[Page 8645]]

       ``Politically we're screwed, and militarily we're taking a 
     pounding,'' Azm said. ``America talked the talk while Iran 
     walked the walk.''
       This would not be the first time that Iran has 
     outmaneuvered the United States since the Iranian revolution 
     brought Shiite clerics to power in Tehran in 1979. But the 
     assertion of Shiite power in Syria rankles Sunnis across the 
     region, compounding the dangers that the Syrian conflict 
     could provoke a wider and even bloodier war than the one 
     currently underway, which is estimated to have killed at 
     least 80,000 people.
       Escalating violence in Iraq and growing tensions in 
     Lebanon, whose conflicts are inextricably intertwined with 
     the increasingly sectarian nature of the war in Syria, 
     underscore the risk that centuries-old religious rivalries 
     between Sunnis and Shiites will be aggravated by Iran's role. 
     The leading religious authority in Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda 
     chief Ayman al-Zawahiri have in the past week called on 
     Sunnis to volunteer to fight in Syria, marking a potentially 
     dangerous convergence that could herald an intensified influx 
     of Sunni jihadis.


                          Saudi Arabia's role

       Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni power in the region and 
     Washington's closest Arab ally, is unlikely to tolerate an 
     ascendant Iran even if the United States chooses to remain 
     aloof, said Jamal Khashoggi, director of the al-Arab 
     television channel.
       ``It is a serious blow in the face of Saudi Arabia, and I 
     don't think the Saudis will accept it. They will do 
     something, whether on their own or with America,'' he said. 
     ``Syria is the heart of the Arab world, and for it to be 
     officially conquered by the Iranians is unacceptable.''
       One way in which Saudi Arabia could influence the outcome 
     is by facilitating unchecked supplies of arms to the rebels, 
     analysts say. Although the umbrella Free Syrian Army has 
     received small quantities of weaponry from Turkey, Saudi 
     Arabia and Qatar over the past year, the United States has 
     sought to control the flow, vetting the recipients and 
     restricting the caliber of the weapons provided.
       After videos surfaced in March of Islamist groups wielding 
     antitank weapons funneled across the Jordanian border by 
     Saudi Arabia, the United States imposed a freeze on all 
     further deliveries, putting the rebels at a disadvantage just 
     as Iran, through Hezbollah, was gearing up to rejuvenate the 
     Assad regime's army with reinforcements, according to rebel 
     leaders.


                           A symbolic battle

       Military analysts caution against overestimating the impact 
     of the rebel defeat in Qusair on what is likely to be a long 
     and unpredictable war. The obscure western town abutting 
     Hezbollah-controlled territory in Lebanon almost certainly 
     offered an easier conquest than other rebel strongholds, such 
     as the city of Aleppo, where the regime is touting an 
     imminent offensive.
       The rebels are continuing to press attacks in the northern, 
     eastern and southern peripheries of the country even as the 
     government appears to be tightening its grip on the central 
     provinces of Damascus and Homs, raising the specter that the 
     country will be partitioned into enclaves backed by rival 
     Sunni and Shiite regional powers. A suicide bombing in 
     Damascus on Tuesday highlighted the likelihood that the 
     rebels will sustain an insurgency similar to the one that 
     persists in Iraq even if they are defeated militarily.
       The chief significance of the battle for Qusair lay in the 
     powerful symbolism of the role played by Hezbollah, which 
     eliminated any doubt that the Syrian conflict has turned into 
     a proxy war for regional influence, said Charles Lister, an 
     analyst with IHS Jane's defense consultancy in London.
       ``External actors are becoming increasingly decisive and 
     pivotal in terms of where the conflict is going,'' he said. 
     And if the United States increased its support for the 
     rebels, Assad's allies would be likely to boost theirs, he 
     added.
       ``The conflict has regionalized, and, unfortunately, that 
     gives it the potential to drag on longer,'' he said. ``As 
     long as one side increases its assistance, the other will see 
     the need to do so, too.''

     

                          ____________________