Situation in Syria

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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.

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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