Iraq Cannot Be Lost or Won

Floor Speech

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, over 60 years ago, the United States President sent advisers to a nation in Asia. He did so because a regime that was perceived as friendly to U.S. interests, but which was, in fact, deeply corrupt and rotten, was threatened.

He promised that those advisers would not engage in combat, that they were there to protect American military equipment. Years later, with 60,000 dead Americans and billions and billions of dollars expended, the helicopters lifted off from Saigon, and the Vietnamese regime fell.

Today, another U.S. President is sending advisers to a nation in Asia and contemplating air strikes in a three-way civil war in Iraq. This President is doing it purportedly to preserve a nation which was the creation, as Secretary Albright says, of British and French diplomats lying to each other almost a hundred years ago.

It is a Nation which, while we have paid gravely in blood and treasure to preserve, may not have the support of its own people.

As usual, politics are intruding. The architects of the Iraq war under George W. Bush see the possibility of redemption for their mistakes, so unbelievably, they are accusing this President of losing Iraq.

Let's be very clear: Iraq cannot be lost or won. A brutal dictator or the United States military can sit on top of conflicts between Sunni and Shiite and Saxon tribes that have roiled that society for centuries, but remove that dictator or remove the U.S. military, and those conflicts will reemerge.

At the end of the day, it is Iraqis and Iraqis alone who have to decide whether their Nation will be preserved, whether there will be multiple countries reflecting multiple fates, or whether there will be one pluralistic nation. Whether they will live in the 21st century, the 7th century, a caliphate, what kind of nation they will have is up for them to determine.

There is an argument, of course, that ISIS--the terrorists who have made such astounding gains in regions of Iraq--are bad and brutal people. This is true. I sit on the Intelligence Committee and see, every day, the outrages that they perpetrate.

They have made two mistakes: one, their brutality will ultimately be their undoing with their own people; and, second, they are now occupying territory--this means that they have addresses.

Just as there are terrorists in Nigeria, in Somalia, in Libya, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Iran, in Egypt, and Morocco--the list goes on--there are terrorists in the Sunni areas of Iraq, but the answer cannot be that the United States military will be there to prevent them from doing what they would wish to do.

Our interests--let's be clear about what our interests are--it must first and foremost be up to the citizens of those nations that I just listed to determine what sort of society they will live in. We cannot do it for them, and when we try, it does not end well.

We must say to these nations that: if you work to craft an inclusive society respecting your minorities, respecting the rights of the individual and of women in particular, if you abide by international norms, we will be at your side. We did this 240 years ago, and we know a little something about how one might do it, and if not, we will not be at your side.

Number two, our interest is to say to them that: if, in the birthing pains of your new societies, you nurture or support or in any way assist those terrorists that would target us or that would target our ally Israel or would target other civilized nations, we will find them, we will fix them, and we will take them off the battlefield, as we are doing around the world today.

Those are our national interests. Those goals are worth our time, our treasure, and our talent. Coaching a team in a three-way civil war is not.

Colleagues, let us not expend one more dollar or one more life on military activity that is not in the clear service of our essential national interests.

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