Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. If I could give my best answer to that, No. 1--and my colleague from Arizona has been more right than wrong for the last 4 years about what was going to happen in the Mideast if we made the choices the President made--No. 1, my colleague said if we don't leave any troops behind in Iraq, all our gains will come unraveled. At the end of the day, the sectarian rise in violence was a direct result of, I think, American troops leaving Iraq. We had a good thing going after the surge. It did work. After drawing the redline against Assad and doing nothing about it, ISIL was able to fill in that vacuum.

But here is the question: Given Iran's behavior today, what would they do with the extra money that would come into their coffers if sanctions were lifted? Let's say we got a nuclear deal tomorrow, and as a result of that deal sanctions would be lifted. Without a nuclear program, the Ayatollahs are wreaking havoc throughout the region. The pro-American government in Yemen has been taken down by Houthi militias funded by Iran. Assad in Syria has killed 220,000 of his own people and he is a puppet of Iran. John Kerry said that Assad was Iran's puppet. We have Lebanon, where Hezbollah is an agent of Iran that saved Assad and creating discontent all over the region. We have Shia militias on the ground in Iraq being led by the leader of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran.

So here is the answer to my colleague's question. How could anybody believe the money we would give them for sanction relief would go to hospitals and schools? Don't you think the best evidence of what they would do with money is what they are doing today? The administration has never tied behavior to sanctions relief. So my big fear, Senator McCain, is that not only would the Arabs want a nuclear weapon of their own if we got a bad deal with Iran, but the money we gave the Iranians would go into their missile program to hit us, would go into further destabilizing the Middle East.

Does my colleague agree that given Iran's behavior there is not one ounce of moderation in this regime? Does my colleague agree there are no moderates in charge of Iran; that when President Obama speaks to the Iranian people, urging them to argue for this deal, they have no voice; that the last time the Iranian people rose up to petition their government they got gunned down? Does my colleague agree with me that President Obama has no idea what is going on inside Iran and no understanding what this regime is up to with the money they already have?

Mr. McCAIN. I would respond to my friend, I wish the President of the United States, who issued some comment to the Iranian people about the necessity of a nuclear agreement, would have spoken up in 2009 when thousands and thousands of Iranians were on the streets in Tehran protesting a corrupt election and wanting freedom and he refused. They were chanting ``Obama, Obama, are you with us or are you with them?'' And he refused to speak out on their behalf. That is when he should have spoken up to the Iranian people.

I would also ask my friend: Is there anyone in Iran who is free to speak up? You either get killed or put in prison if you speak up. So my question is: Who was the President of the United States speaking to with those remarks?

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, all I can say is it would be like telling a North Korean to speak up. That may be a bit of an extreme example, but not too much.

The point we are trying to make to President Obama is that if he believes there is a moderate element in Iran, who are they? Who is in charge of this government he is trying to empower at the expense of the hardliners?

The assembly of experts are the people who pick the next Ayatollah. On March 10, they had an election--I think it was 46 to 24. Ayatollah Yazdi--I don't want to mispronounce his name--won the election to be in charge of the assembly of experts. Their No. 1 goal is to pick the next Ayatollah. He is widely known to be the hardest of the hardliners.

So I want the administration to explain to us, the Congress, who the moderates are and how do you square that circle with the election of the most hardline Ayatollah to pick the next Ayatollah? What information does the President have that there is a moderate element that we can empower in Iran?

Can my colleague name one moderate voice that has a real say in the Iranian Government?

Mr. McCAIN. Not any who are alive or out of prison. I am sure there are many moderate voices in the Ayatollah's prisons throughout Iran by the tens of thousands.

But I would also ask my colleague: Is it not true that every manifestation of Iranian behavior--whether it be in Baghdad, where they now have significant control; in Beirut, where Hezbollah basically has control of the country; in Damascus--Bashir Assad would not be alive today or in Syria today if it hadn't been for the Iranians flying in hundreds of tons of equipment, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and bringing Hezbollah out of Lebanon and into Syria. And now we see Soleimani, the leader liberating Tikrit, getting all the publicity. And the people of Iraq, naturally, are thanking him for freeing Tikrit from the forces of ISIS.

One other comment. I know other colleagues are on the floor, but David Petraeus, probably the most brilliant military officer I have ever had the honor of knowing, made a very interesting comment in an interview the other day and I would like my colleague's comment on it. He said the major threat in the Middle East and in the world today is not ISIS. It is not ISIS. He said it was Iran.

I think when we look at a map and we see where the Iranians are now in control, we have to give great credence to General Petraeus's assessment. Would my colleague agree?

Mr. GRAHAM. Let me not only say why I agree, but here is what is about to happen in the Mideast. Because of our lack of leadership, the Iranians have gone on a rampage. My colleague had a very august group of people today--some of the smartest people in the Mideast and the country, leading think tank folks--come before the committee today, and I asked the question: Do you agree with me that Iran is wreaking havoc? Three out of four said yes. The one lady said seriously destabilizing.

Whatever adjective you want to use, it is commonly viewed that the Iranian regime is projecting power in the most disruptive manner in recent memory. They are backing people who took down the pro-Yemen Government, and now we have lost the ability to follow Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that is responsible for the attack in Paris.

Assad wouldn't last, as my colleague said, 5 minutes, and the Assad regime, which has killed 220,000 people and driven over a million people out of Syria, is putting pressure on Lebanon and Jordan.

The Shia militia on the ground today are probably war criminals by any classic definition, and they are being led by Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard, the biggest exporter of terrorism in the world.

Mr. McCAIN. And responsible for the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of American marines and soldiers. What do we tell their mothers?

Mr. GRAHAM. Exactly. So the point we are trying to make to the President and the Members of this body is that Iran is on a rampage without a nuclear weapon. Clearly they are not a moderate regime trying to live peacefully with their neighbors. They are trying to disrupt the whole Mideast and have influence unlike at any other time.

Here is what is going to happen. The Arabs in the region are going to push back. They no longer trust us. Remember when the head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence community said it is better to be America's enemy than her friend? We heard this twice in the Mideast on our recent tour--that people believe Iran is getting a better deal from America being her enemy than the traditional friends of this country.

So here is what is going to happen. Turkey is going to align with the Sunni Arab world and go after Iran themselves, and we are going to have a Sunni-Shia war the likes of which we haven't seen in 1,000 years, because without American leadership the whole place is falling apart.

Here is the legacy of Barack Obama. He tried to change the Mideast by giving speeches. And every time he was told by military leaders you should do A, he did B. He has reached out to the Ayatollahs, not understanding who he is talking to. He has empowered the most brutal, vicious, murderers on the planet today in Iran.

This Ayatollah in Iran is not a good man. He has blood on his hands.

The President is talking to the people who killed our soldiers by the hundreds. He is giving them resources they wouldn't have otherwise, and he is making a deal with the devil. At the end of the day, this is blowing up in our face.

If the President doesn't self-correct, we are all in trouble. And if this Congress sits on the sidelines and allows this nuclear deal with Iran to go unchecked, and we don't look at it and vote on it, then we own the consequences of it.

To every Member of this body I say: We have an independent duty, as does the President of the United States, to make sure the deal we do with Iran is a good deal for America and not a nightmare for the world. So we are asking our colleagues to take their independent duty seriously. We have a check-and-balance responsibility. Do not let this administration do a deal with the Ayatollahs in Iran who go to the United Nations and bypass us. If it is a good deal, we will vote for it.

As strongly as I know how to say it, I am telling my colleagues that our policies in the Mideast are failing, Iran is the biggest winner of America leading from behind, all our traditional allies are in a world of hurt, and they are going to take matters in their own hands.

I thank Senator McCain for his leadership and for telling America about the right choices, even though they are the hard choices. I will continue to work with my colleague as long as I can to speak truth to what I think is the biggest foreign policy disaster in my lifetime unfolding before our very eyes.

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