[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15467-15468]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           SITUATION IN SYRIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Himes) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I am not generally in the habit of agreeing 
with my friend from Texas, but I do thank him for posing some really 
challenging questions about our activities in Syria.
  I think it is fair to say that the situation in Syria has gotten 
worse, not better. And only now that the chaos in Syria results in the 
flow of hundreds of thousands of people into Europe and into 
surrounding and delicately constructed countries, only now that we are 
having a conversation about how many Syrian refugees we will take in 
the United States are we beginning to take notice of the moral tragedy 
that has been with Syria for many, many years.
  The civil war in Syria has resulted in the deaths of more than 
300,000 people. It has created 4 million refugees and displaced more 
than 6.5 million people into places like Jordan and Turkey--and now, in 
Europe and elsewhere around the world.
  Sadly, it appears that the efforts that we have made, which my friend 
from Texas referred to, have been ineffectual, to put it mildly, and 
the situation grows worse. We watch now the Russians introducing 
military equipment into Syria, something that can only result in more 
violence, more death, and more refugees. We see, sadly--and I have 
watched this closely from my perch on the House Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence--ISIS gaining in strength, not losing 
strength.
  There are lots of conversations to be had about U.S. efforts to train 
and equip the so-called Syrian moderates. There are conversations to be 
had about how we deal with Russian influence in the area. But something 
we must focus on now, and something that is the subject of a letter 
that I and 54 of my colleagues have sent to the President of the United 
States, is that the only real solution in Syria, a solution that should 
be implemented today, is for the international community, all of the 
players that have a stake and influence in Syria, to come together 
today to begin the process of working out an international agreement, 
the terms of which will undoubtedly be uncomfortable for us, but an 
agreement that will bring an end to the civil war. This agreement 
should provide for the exit of Bashar al-Assad. He has lost all 
credibility as a global leader, but he remains there.
  Apart from ending the humanitarian and moral crisis in Syria, that 
conference would allow us to finally align behind an objective that I 
believe is shared by pretty much everybody in the region, which is the 
destruction of ISIS.
  Until we take this step of coming together around a table that, yes, 
will involve some unsavory characters, that, yes, will not lead to an 
agreement that we regard as perfect, until we do that, we will simply 
be managing chaos. And maybe we will manage chaos well, but it will 
still be managing chaos: hundreds of thousands of refugees and the 
destabilization that that will cause, more weaponry being introduced, 
more U.S. taxpayer dollars expended.
  We can do that. That is what we have been doing. We can do it for 
more months and more years. Or we can do the obvious thing, which is 
get around a table--and I do call on the President of the United States 
to show American leadership in this--and say we don't leave the room 
until this moral tragedy is stopped.

[[Page 15468]]

  This is what it would mean to be a leader in the world. We can bomb. 
We can send military equipment. We do that a lot. Real leadership will 
involve saying we will come together with people we like and people we 
don't to solve this problem.
  I call on this House to assist me and others in the effort to make 
sure that this becomes a national priority so we can finally bring this 
tragedy in the Middle East to an end.

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