Foreign Policy
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, contrary to what may be popular belief, there are plenty of Democrats in this body who are very much worried about Iraq. The question is, What do we do about it? I will be the first to admit it is complicated.
The first thing we have to assess as a nation is, does it really matter what happens in Iraq? Clearly, I think it does. Economically, if Iraq becomes a failed state, the oil production in the south will fall into the hands of the Iranians, and Iraq will become a failed state that spreads economic chaos throughout the region. We will feel it at the gas pump, and we will eventually feel it in our wallets. An economic collapse in Iraq would affect our economy.
I think it would throw the world oil market into turmoil. So it matters economically.
Militarily, does it matter? It does in this regard: ISIS is an offshoot of Al Qaeda because Al Qaeda kicked them out. These people now are going to have a safe haven from Aleppo, Syria, to the gates of Baghdad. They have sworn to attack us. Part of their agenda is to strike our homeland. Their goal is to create an Islamic state--a caliphate--that would put the people under their rule into darkness. I don't want to hear any more war-on-women stories unless we address Iraq and Syria. Do we want to see a war on women? I will show my colleagues one. Can we imagine what little girls are thinking today in the Sunni part of Iraq and in Syria? Can we imagine the hell on Earth? The people who will do that to their own--what would they do to us?
I don't mean to be an alarmist, but I am alarmed. I am just telling my colleagues what they are saying they will do. Our Director of National Intelligence has said that the safe haven for ISIS in Syria, and now in Iraq, presents a great threat to our homeland. The mistake President Obama is making is not to realize we need lines of defense.
Why did we want to leave a residual force behind in Iraq? Ten thousand to 15,000 would have given the Iraqi military the capacity they don't possess today, the confidence they don't possess today. It would have given us an edge against ISIS we don't have. A Toyota truck doesn't do very well against American air power. But when we have no American air power and when the intelligence capability of the American military leaves, the Iraqi Army goes dark. We have seen a collapse of the Iraqi Army that I think could have been prevented.
We can't kill all the terrorists to keep us safe. Our goal in this trying time is to have lines of defense, to keep the war over there so it doesn't come over here. It is in our national security interests to partner with people in Iraq. There were many who wanted a different life than ISIS would have. There are many Shias who want to be Iraqi Shias, not Iranian Shias. I have been there enough to know.
So this fateful decision to look for ways to get out totally has come back to haunt us, and we are on the verge of doing the same thing in Afghanistan. I promised my colleagues the Taliban would be dancing in the streets--they just do not believe in dancing--when they heard we were leaving in 2016. Can we imagine how the Afghan people feel who have fought these thugs by our side believing we would not abandon them and now to hear we are going to pull all of our troops out but for a couple of hundred. Can we imagine how a young woman in Afghanistan feels. Can we imagine how people in Pakistan feel--a nuclear-armed nation that could be in the crosshairs of the people trying to take Afghanistan down.
But it is not just about the people in Afghanistan. What about us? President Obama is going back to a pre-9/11 mentality. On September 10, 2001, we had not one soldier in Afghanistan, not one dollar of aid, not even an ambassador. So those in America who think if we leave these guys alone they will leave us alone, you are not listening to what they are saying. The only reason 3,000 Americans died on September 11 and not 3 million is they can't get the weapons to kill 3 million of us. If they could, they would, and they are very close.
So, Mr. President: Recalculate your decision on Afghanistan. If you pull all of our troops out, the Taliban will regroup, the Afghan National Army will meet a terrible fate, and the people who wish us harm will be coming back our way. The region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a target-rich environment for the world's most radical terrorists, radical Islamists. So at the end of the day, Mr. President: Your job is to protect us. You are destroying the lines of defense that exist. The Afghan people are willing to have us stay there in enough numbers to protect them and us. Mr. President: Before it is too late, change your policies in Afghanistan. Mr. President: Do not take this country back to a pre-9/11 mentality where we treat terrorists as common criminals when we read them their rights rather than gathering intelligence.
We are letting our defenses erode all over the world. The enemies are emboldened and our friends are afraid. I can tell my colleagues this. If we continue on this track, it will come here again.
With that, I yield the floor for Senator Chambliss.
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