Saudi Fugitive Declassification Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, it is interesting. When we come here, we seem to think that everybody in America is reading the blogs and all the major newspapers every morning. A lot of people do, but some people have lives. They get up early. They go to work. They listen to the news from time to time, but they don't follow it closely. That is what they hire us to do and they hire us to deal with as policymakers.

On this issue of Syria, it strikes me, and it really did earlier this week when I visited this gas station close to my home that I frequent. It also has a little convenience store with a coffee stand inside. A gentleman comes up to me and basically says: Why do we care about all the stuff that is happening there? You know, it is thousands of miles away. These people have been fighting forever. Let them figure it out. Why do we have to be involved in all of this?

I will tell you that there is appeal to that argument. There really is. I understand why Americans feel that way. Since September of 2001, we have lost countless young men and women abroad in combat. We have seen families who have been ripped apart. We have seen the injuries that people come home with, not to mention the amount of money that has been spent on all of this as well. At a time when we face so many challenges, a lot of people are saying to themselves: Well, why do we have to be everywhere? Why do we have to care? These people have been fighting for a billion years. It is not our problem. We need to focus on issues here at home.

I do understand the appeal of that argument. I want to tell you that despite how much I focus on these issues and spend time on them, from time to time, those arguments appeal to me. But then you have to analyze why we are there to begin with and what it would mean in the short to long term to our country to just walk away from these obligations. That is what I hope to do here today in a way that answers the question the gentleman asked me last Monday. I didn't have time to get into all of this because I had an airplane to catch, and these airlines don't wait for anybody.

So here is the way I would explain it. The first is that you have to tell people why we are there to begin with. Let me tell you what this is not. This is not about an endless war or being somewhere for the rest of our lives. Frankly, it is not even about committing thousands of troops. The U.S. force presence in Syria was quite small. It actually achieved an extraordinary amount with such a few number of people.

There were 2,000 special operators imbedded alongside thousands of Kurds and our international partners. Basically, it is an area that ISIS once dominated. They literally controlled the cities. The capital of the caliphate was once there at one point. They were driven out. There was tremendous success, a real example of the sort of counterterror that these missions have successfully pursued.

The stated goal was, first and foremost, to stamp out and eliminate ISIS. The second was that our presence would provide leverage when the time came for a Syrian peace settlement--a settlement that would reflect our national interests, which are primarily three things.

The first is limiting Assad's power. The guy is a stone-cold criminal. This guy has gassed and murdered his own people. There has to be some limits and constraints to his power.

The second is to safeguard the Kurds. As you have heard others come to the floor and talk about, these people fought with us. We told them: If you will do the ground-fighting and we help you from the air and with logistics, we are going to be here with you. They did, and they lost over 10,000 people in that fight. They have been great partners in that endeavor. We had a moral obligation, not to mention a promise that we made.

The third is to limit Iran's influence. Iran would love nothing more than to completely dominate Syria because it links them directly into Lebanon to supply and support Hezbollah. It allows them to pivot over into Iraq to become the dominant power there.

Just imagine a Middle East in which Iran is the dominant power in Lebanon, in Syria, and, of course, in Iran, and, eventually, in Iraq, and, God forbid, in Bahrain, and with a growing influence in Yemen through the Houthis. They not only encircle Israel. They encircle Saudi Arabia. It would be a nightmare.

We are engaged in a campaign of maximum pressure against Iran, and the last thing you want to do in a maximum-pressure campaign is to alleviate pressure, and having a greater influence in Syria would alleviate a lot of pressure for Iran. That is the purpose of our presence there.

The administration's and the President's decision has undermined every single one of them. That is the only way to talk about it. I think it has done so in ways we are going to regret for a long time.

The first is the ISIS mission. There are 10,000 ISIS killers being held in jails and camps in northern Syria. The guards at those camps are not Americans. They are Kurdish guards. What happens when someone invades the cities that your family lives in? You send people to go meet that enemy. That means that they have been removing guards from the prisons to the frontlines.

There are less and less guards in these camps. Estimates are already that a large number of ISIS killers have already gotten out, and they anticipate more to get out soon. Just imagine 10,000 killers running loose, not to mention efforts by ISIS to break them out with less security.

By the way, this is a problem not just in Syria. It is a real problem in Iraq. About 200,000 refugees have already amassed at the border. There is no way Iraq can go through every single one of them and determine who is an ISIS killer and who is a refugee who is coming back. So you can suddenly see this resurgence of ISIS spread and destabilize Iraq. So, suddenly, this evil movement that we had on the ropes and had become an insurgency--and, frankly, was already reemerging as an insurgency--has just been given fuel to operate in one, and now in two, countries.

How about the goal of providing leverage for a future settlement to reflect our interests? First of all, in restraints on Assad's power, think about it this way. Literally, overnight, when the Turks came in and the Kurds didn't have us anymore, they were forced to cut a deal with Assad. So, suddenly, the Kurds are basically telling Assad's troops: Come up to the cities that we once had, and you now be the troops here to back us up. You take control of them. That is what they had to do to avoid being slaughtered.

In practical terms, what it means is that Assad, literally, overnight, has captured a third of the land of Syria at no price and no concession. He had to make no concessions, pay no price, do nothing other than just send people up to take it.

To me, this doesn't sound like we have imposed restraints on Assad. It sounds like he has just literally been gifted control over a third of the national territory at no concession and no price. He had to do nothing.

How about safeguarding the Kurdish interests? I think that is self- explanatory. The Kurds have now been forced to align themselves with Assad, who, in the short term, may be fine, but once this is all over, I doubt very seriously whether the Kurds will be treated well, not to mention the Yazidi and the Christian communities that the Kurds were protecting, who now are also under Assad's rule. Suffice it to say that nothing here has safeguarded their interests.

There is news today that the Vice President and the Secretary of State were able to go to Turkey and work out what is being called a ceasefire. I think they deserve praise, along with the President, for pursuing that mission because anytime that human lives are spared from death in a war, that is cause for celebration.

With all due respect, it does not appear to me, however, that this is really a ceasefire. It is more an ultimatum because what Erdogan is basically saying is this: Here is land that I intend to take. I intend to drive every Kurd out of this area, and I intend for Turkey to control this area in northern Syria as a security zone, as he calls it. The only thing he has agreed to as an ultimatum is that the Kurds can leave this area voluntarily in the next 5 days, or he will move in and take it and kill them. You can call it a ceasefire, but, frankly, it doesn't appear to have changed the strategic objective that Erdogan has for that region.

I certainly think that while it is good news that it made some lemonade out of this lemon, nonetheless, these are cities in which not just Kurdish troops but people and families are going to have to leave now, and we are going to have to be involved in helping to coordinate and guarantee that, which runs its own risks.

Ultimately, it is an ultimatum by him saying: You have 5 days to leave before I move in and kill you.

How about limiting Iran's influence? First of all, clearly, Iran will now have more operating space in Syria. The lack of a U.S. presence there means that Iran and its affiliated groups, particularly these Hezbollah shoots that are now in Syria, will have much more operating space. The stronger Assad is, the stronger Iran will be. Assad is a very close ally of the Iranians, and the more space he controls, the more space they have to operate.

Embedded in this, as you have noticed, is that Iran has developed this ability to conduct attacks against the United States, sometimes using third groups that they control, to either blame the attacks on, to claim credit for the attacks, or, in some cases, to conduct them, because what this does is it gives Iran the capability of attacking the United States without facing international condemnation for the attack--enough deniability--especially from countries that are looking to not blame Iran anyway because it would force them to get out of the Iran deal. And they have gotten away with it.

But one of the things that Iran has calculated in these attacks--one of the things they have taken into the calculation--is this: We believe the United States is trying to get out of the region; meaning, if we attack them, we can hit them much harder than we ever had before because they don't want another war. They are not going to hit us back as hard. We can get away with more.

I submit to you that I am pretty confident that this decision has strengthened that perception, not weakened it. I fear what that can mean next.

This also increases Iran's influence in Iraq. If you are an Iraqi politician right now, whether you are a Shia or a Sunni, and you have just seen this decision, you are thinking to yourself: We are next. And when the Americans leave here at some point--at some point we will have to--the Iranians are going to become the most important group on the ground.

In fact, there were reports yesterday that there were these protests on the street and there were Iranian-linked militias with snipers on the rooftops operating in Iraq. These were not elements of the army or the police force. These were Iranian elements operating in Iraq. This has increased their influence in Iraq and their ability to determine the future of Iraq in a way that is terrible for us, terrible for our allies, like Israel, and a great benefit to the Iranians, not to mention that Syria creates an extraordinary land bridge that the Iranians can now use to increasingly continue to supply Hezbollah in Lebanon and to increasingly supply their own militias just across the Golan Heights.

The irony in all of this, ironically, is that I fear this decision actually makes it likely that there is going to be a war. I will tell you why. As I pointed out first, there is the Iranian attack calculation. This further strengthens their belief that they can get away with even more brazen attacks because the threshold for a U.S. military response is higher than it has ever been because we are looking to get out, and this proves it.

What that can mean is they can miscalculate it, and we are going to have to respond. Then, all of a sudden, you are in a real shooting war--not a ``2,000 person on the ground, working with the Kurds'' war, a real regional conflict.

The other point is that all of our alliances around the world are built on security guarantees. In Eastern Europe, the NATO security guarantee in many of these countries is a 300-, 400-, 500-man force--a tripwire. It is not enough to stop a Russian incursion, but they are there because if they were confronted by Russians, that would trigger a broader conflict.

You could say the same about South Korea, our presence in Japan, the commitments we have made to Israel, and the troop presence we have now in Saudi Arabia. It goes on and on and on.

Ask yourself: After this, would any ally relying on the U.S. security assurances be more or less confident of our assurances? I will tell you this. Less than 48 hours before this withdrawal decision was made, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave unequivocal assurances that we were not going anywhere. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a general, General Milley, said: We are there. We are not going anywhere. These are all rumors. Forty-eight hours later, this withdrawal announcement was made.

With all due respect, this is not his fault. I don't blame him, if he believes that. What is his credibility now when he says anything like that to anybody else or when he warns someone not to do something against us because we will act in return? Maybe his credibility isn't shot--and I would warn our enemies not to view it that way--but I can tell you it certainly hasn't been strengthened by this. One last point on this. You know, Russia and China are going all over the world trying to come up with an ad hoc, anti-U.S. coalition--a coalition of countries that are sanctioned--to try to get around the dollarization of the global economy, a coalition to fight against the impediments against Chinese spyware and technology, and a coalition to limit our presence in one part of the world or another. The argument they make to these countries is, Why are you aligned with America? They are unreliable. They are unreliable partners. They will cut on you as soon as it makes sense domestically for them to do so or somebody else gets elected and has a different opinion.

Well, ask yourselves, has that argument been strengthened or weakened? Have we made it easier or harder for Russia and China to make that argument, including the countries that we have basing agreements with now and including the countries that we are meeting with every single day and asking them: Don't buy Russian weapons. Don't install Chinese technology and spyware in your Safer City Initiatives so they can spy on you and ultimately on us. Don't allow them to take over your port facilities or operate rotationally based military forces in your national territory. We will help you with those things instead.

Well, I can tell you that when China and Russia go to them the next time and say that America is unreliable, they will have one more exhibit to show them as evidence to prove it. That is why I say this decision has an impact that goes well beyond Syria.

I will tell you that, again, I think what the Vice President and the Secretary of State did today is noble. There are lives that are going to be saved because now they have 5 days to leave those areas. But that doesn't address any of these other repercussions. In a blink of an eye, we completely undermined and unraveled the very justification for this operation and all of the stated reasons we said we were there. We had these 2,000 troops working with the Kurds to keep ISIS from reemerging and to provide leverage in the future Syrian settlement, to restrain Assad's power, to safeguard Kurdish interests, our partner's interest, and to limit Iranian influence. Every single one of those stated interests--that was our policy less than 2 weeks ago--has been wiped out.

One of my favorite questions in the hallway from the reporters is, What should Congress do now? What can we do? Well, I think we are all searching to see what we can do to mitigate some of this damage. But I want to be honest with you--there are some mistakes and some decisions that cannot be reversed. There is some damage that cannot be mitigated, and I fear that some of these things are a part of it. We will spend time thinking about it. I think there might be some opportunities for the administration in the weeks and months to come to do something about it, but right now, I think we need to prepare ourselves for the consequences, for what this is going to mean in the long term.

So it was kind of a long answer to give someone at a gas station when I had a flight to catch in 45 minutes and they were in a hurry as well, but I hope that for the people back home and potentially around the country who have an interest in this topic, I was at least able to shine some light on why some of us do not support this decision.

It isn't because we favor endless wars or want invasions. It is because while this may be popular when first presented to people, when you view it in its totality and entirety, sometimes what is popular in the short term is not good for America's national security in the long term, and it is my fear that this is one such example.

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