Preventing Destabilization of Iraq Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. SUOZZI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Engel and Chairman Royce for their bipartisan cooperation in this committee, and I thank Representative Kinzinger for his leadership on promoting stability in the Middle East overall.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of the bipartisan H.R. 4591, the Preventing Destabilization of Iraq Act of 2018.

At the 2018 United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Rouhani spoke against foreign interventions and impositions of ``alien wishes of the people of the region.'' Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif complained about countries that support ``nonstate actors who wreak havoc through terror.'' They both might want to look in the mirror.

In Iraq, Iranian-backed militias have committed human rights abuses for years, executing and beating civilians and looting homes. These same militias have taken roles in trying to influence Iraq's nascent political system.

In Iraq's recent elections, IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani personally meddled in Iraq's political process by coercing Shiite parties with differing views to form a parliamentary majority, one that presumably would favor Iran's agenda. This, of course, is only one example of Iranian activities across the Middle East.

In Syria, Iranian-backed militias have done their own share of murdering and looting. In Yemen, the Iranian-backed Houthis oppress their own people and fire ballistic missiles at civilians in Saudi Arabia. From Bahrain to Lebanon, Iran has played a destabilizing role.

H.R. 4591 would sanction any foreign person, not just Iranians, conducting significant destabilizing activities in Iraq.

Corruption is endemic and rampant in Iraq's political system. Iraq's long-term stability depends on a representative government that reflects the will of the people.

This bill requires our government to review the status of two of Tehran's proxies in Iran, HHN and AAH, and assess whether the State Department should designate them as foreign terrorist organizations.

By 2011, AAH claimed responsibility for thousands of attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, including the tragic 2007 attack on the Karbala provincial headquarters, which resulted in the execution of four Americans. The group is notorious for its use of explosively formed penetrators, the devastating IEDs that have killed and maimed far too many American troops and civilians.

HHN, a hybrid of fighters from AAH and Hezbollah Brigades of Iraq, played an active role against Americans during the Iraq war, and now in Syria's civil war, boasting of a unit in the Golan Heights targeting Israel.

These groups claim they exist to protect Iraqis, but as the evidence clearly demonstrates, they terrorize their countrymen and innocents across the region.

But these militias are not the only security threat in Iraq. Although the Islamic State has largely been driven from Iraq, the country still faces a myriad of economic and political challenges. Left unaddressed, Iraq could once again destabilize, creating a void for ISIS or other extremists to fill and, once again, throw the region into chaos and turmoil.

This summer, citizens of Basra, Iraq's second largest city, openly protested the corruption and mismanagement that has tainted their water supply and left their electrical grid in tatters. They directed some of their anger at the Iranian-backed militias that have enriched themselves while ordinary Iraqis suffered.

The Iraqi Government cannot provide the services its citizens so desperately need while so much power is controlled by the militias. We need to stand with and aid Iraqis that merely want to root out corruption and malign foreign interference in their internal affairs.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4591.

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