Foreign Policy and the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it is always good to hear our friend and colleague Senator Whitehouse and see his chart. I know he has given that speech or something like it many times, and I am tempted to respond to some of the things he said, but I will not because there is something else I want to talk about.

Yesterday I came to the floor to talk about President Obama's domestic policy legacy, and the No. 1 attribute of that is ObamaCare and how ObamaCare failed to deliver on the promises the President and the people who supported it made in terms of bringing down costs, making care available, not disrupting people with coverage they already had and liked.

The verdict is in on ObamaCare. The costs are up, access to care is down, and I have talked about the huge premium increases my constituents in Texas are going to experience because the masters of the universe who dreamed this up simply did not reflect reality or anticipate unintended consequences of their actions.

Today I would like to talk a little bit about President Obama's foreign policy and national security legacy. After almost 8 years of this administration, the main takeaway is, the world is more dangerous and the world is less stable than it was when President Obama took office 8 years ago. As the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has pointed out, the array of threats confronting us and threatening our national security has never been greater--at least, he said, in his 50 years in the intelligence community.

Last month, I had a chance once again to visit Afghanistan and Iraq. I wanted to go back and get up to speed on exactly what the conditions were, the challenges we were facing there, and meet with our military leaders as well as constituents from Texas. I had a chance to also visit with a number of foreign leaders and of course discuss our ongoing efforts to combat terrorism and help those countries achieve some sort of stability. Obviously, the biggest focus right now is ISIS. The Islamic State is known in Arabic, I am told, as Daesh, which is more of a pejorative connotation. People resist the Islamic State because they say it is not a state, and indeed what I learned in Mosul and Raqqa, efforts are underway to basically destroy what ISIS now claims is its burgeoning caliphate.

The good news is we have some of the best and brightest patriots in the world working in very difficult places to advance our interests. The bad news is, they are not getting the strategic guidance and leadership we need from the White House. Because of that, success in the region is limited. Because our goals appear to be not actually disrupting and destroying the threat of Islamic radicalism, manifest in the name of ISIS or Al Qaeda, it appears to be more of a containment approach--let's do the best we can to contain it but let the next President and the next Congress worry about it.

We just completed a major offensive against ISIS in Afghanistan, but the Taliban and its ally, the Haqqani Network, are kidnapping Americans and overrunning regional outposts that had been held by the Afghans. One of the biggest problems in Afghanistan, I was reminded once again, is the fact that we have an unreliable partner in Pakistan because what happens is many of the Taliban come from Pakistan, where they have safe haven, and they come over into Afghanistan and attack Afghan security forces and the police and then they go back to this protective hideout in Pakistan.

We know ISIS still holds large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq. If you look at a map, you actually see a line between Syria and Iraq, but that border has essentially been obliterated. We know ISIS continues to export its terrorist ideology to Europe and the West, where there have been spectacular and deadly attacks either instigated by or inspired by this dangerous ideology.

The strategic and humanitarian crisis in Syria continues unabated, and it is beyond horrible. Now, because of our weakened strategic hand and diminished credibility in the eyes of friend and foe alike, we have apparently been forced to rely on the Russians to negotiate a ceasefire.

Last week, 4 years after President Obama promised that using a chemical weapon would constitute a redline that must not be crossed and that would result in a firmer U.S. response, it was reported that the Syrian Government has once again carried out gas attacks, this time with chlorine. Many were wounded. Two civilians were killed, one including a 13-year-old girl.

Obviously, the threats of redlines that must not be crossed because there were no consequences associated with crossing the redline, obviously Bashar al Assad feels he has impunity to do whatever he wants in order to maintain power because he probably realizes the alternative to doing that is not very good for him.

The line President Obama drew has now been repeatedly crossed by the murderous Assad regime. ISIS is still strong and the war criminal al Assad continues to use those chemical weapons against civilians. We also have seen that when we don't do everything in our power to root out and extinguish a serious jihadist threat abroad--like the one posed by ISIS in Syria and Iraq--that threat can make its way to our shores through ISIS-inspired attacks right here, the most recent one being the Orlando shooter who killed 49 people and wounded many more, who claimed allegiance to the leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi.

That explains why, according to a recent poll, a majority of voters feel less safe today than they did before 9/11. Unfortunately, on national security issues, President Obama has spent most of his time cutting a deal with the foremost state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, and prioritized our relationship with this enemy over longstanding allies like Israel and Gulf States.

Now, I am afraid, those birds have come home to roost, and we are all paying a terrible price. Unfortunately, the families of the victims of the single biggest terrorist attack on American soil, September 11, 2001, are paying a price too.

We will be hearing more about this, but recently the Senate and the House unanimously passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. This is bipartisan legislation that passed the Senate by unanimous consent and passed with every single Member of the House of Representatives voting for it just last Friday.

To refresh everyone's memory, this bill would provide victims of terrorism an avenue--really access--to justice to seek restitution from those who fund terrorist attacks on American soil.

Some have said this is fighting terrorism by lawsuit. No, it is not. That is not the goal. The goal is simple justice for those injured and the families who lost loved ones as a result of the largest terrorist attack on American soil on 9/11/2001.

President Obama, for some reason, has said he intends to veto the legislation because he thinks it will somehow interfere with his U.S. diplomatic relations with other countries. All this legislation does is amend a law that has been on the books since the late 1970s, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Over time, we have had a number of exceptions carved out to this doctrine of sovereign immunities. All this does is give people an opportunity to make their case in court without being summarily thrown out based on the invocation of this doctrine of sovereign immunities.

It is really inexplicable to me that the President would talk about vetoing this opportunity for the victims of 9/11 and their families to be able to make their case in court, but if he does so, I hope he will do so quickly. We sent the legislation over to him on Monday, and I hope he does whatever he is going to do. I would love to have him sign the legislation into law, but if he decides to veto it, I hope he does it quickly so we can just as quickly vote to override that veto. There is no reason why we need to make these families wait any longer.

It is worth noting that the Middle East isn't the only region of the country that is more unstable since President Obama took office. Just over the weekend, it was reported that North Korea completed yet another nuclear test--its fifth. According to reports, the warhead that was detonated was about twice as large as what they tested in the beginning of the year in January.

President Obama called the test a threat and that is about all, giving lipservice to two of our strongest allies, Japan and South Korea, but with no visible or tangible commitment to do anything about it. He said our commitment to them was unshakeable, and so it is, but you couldn't tell that by the reaction to this fifth nuclear test by North Korea. But just like our partners in the Middle East, not to mention Europe, these two East Asian allies don't have reason to put much faith in the Obama doctrine, whatever it is, because unfortunately our timidity in supporting our friends and allies emboldens our adversaries, while causing our friends and allies to wonder whether we will keep our commitments to them.

North Korea has accelerated its missile testing. It has already conducted close to two dozen tests this year. Eventually, of course, the concern is that they will be able to mount nuclear warheads onto missiles that could not only hit our allies in the region but also the mainland United States at some point.

Even as enemies of America attempt to grow their arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, this administration is reportedly considering handing a gift to North Korea and other rogue regimes by adopting a no first use policy on nuclear weapons. Why in the world would you tell your adversaries beforehand what your intentions would be? This weakens, of course, the effectiveness of our own nuclear deterrent in furtherance of a fantasy goal of a world without nuclear weapons. I wish that it could be true, but it is a fantasy. The loss of deterrence caused by an announcement like that indeed creates an even more frightening and dangerous world.

Throughout his time in the White House, President Obama has done next to nothing to counter the threat posed by North Korea, and that is dangerous.

President Obama has just a few more months left in the Oval Office. At this point, it would be unrealistic to hope he uses the time to promote a solid foreign policy and national security agenda that reflects the best interest of the American people. Instead, we can only hope he does no further harm to our national security interests.

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