Condemning Actions by Syria Regarding the Assassination of Former Prime Minister of Lebanon
CONDEMNING ACTIONS BY SYRIA REGARDING THE ASSASSINATION OF FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF LEBANON -- (House of Representatives - December 14, 2005)
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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Madam Chairman for the time, but also as the subcommittee chairwoman, you were instrumental in our ability to be able to bring this legislation to the floor quickly.
Mr. Lantos particularly not only aided in bringing this to the floor, but, Mr. Speaker, this was a piece of legislation that was drafted and then aid was given on a bipartisan basis to make it a better, more comprehensive piece of legislation, and I am grateful for that.
Mr. Speaker, it is a difficult task to keep coming to the well and asking for Congress to help in a war of words, a war of diplomacy that now wages in Lebanon and in Syria, but it is a better war to fight than a war with tanks and blood. What we are doing here with this resolution is we are saying to Syria that we want to avoid war; we are saying to Lebanon that we want to avoid war; but with the help of the French, the Germans, the United Nations, the entire world, we will in fact see that the murderers of Rafiq Hariri are brought to justice. But, more importantly, I think we send the message that diplomacy is in fact an alternative to war, but it is not an alternative to war forever.
President Bush should be commended for the years of work that first Secretary Powell and now Secretary Rice have done in order to try to convince and cajole Syria to come in to the world of nations, to abandon its occupation of Lebanon, which it did not do without global pressure, and further to come clean about its support for Hezbollah, to certainly come clean for its support of various groups that have committed at least 12 separate bombings in Lebanon.
I do not believe that Syria will hear this. I believe I am here tonight speaking, Mr. Speaker, to the American people and to the rest of the world in saying that, yes, we are using diplomacy to anyone who would possibly hear it. We are doing it with the United Nations, we are doing it in concert with every nation, every nation that rejects terrorism we are doing it with. But I think it is very clear that on a bipartisan basis, the House of Representatives in voting for this resolution is making it clear that we stand together against the kinds of activities that it is clear Syria has been implicated with.
I have met with Bashar Assad. I met with him in 2001 and 2002 and 2003 and 2004. My hope was that he would embrace the West. He had been educated in the West, he had all that it would take to understand the benefits that would come from that, and he said he wanted them.
But at the same time I met with Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, both here in the United States on his many trips and in Lebanon, and you could see how he was unable to enjoy the fruits of a democracy and a people that were able to bring an economy, even under adverse conditions, to more than twice the GDP of the region, and certainly far greater than Syria has ever had. In fact, Prime Minister Hariri had a model for Syria, but Syria would not follow it, and ultimately that schism between the two cultures led to people who were adverse to what Prime Minister Hariri stood for killing him.
Today we do want to bring them to justice, but today, Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that we are using diplomacy. The Bush administration and this Congress is using diplomacy as an alternative to war, but as someone who recognizes that today, in President Bush's speech at about 11 o'clock today, he talked about there being one democracy in the Arab world.
Mr. Speaker, I do not normally correct the President, but there are two democracies in the Arab world. Clearly Lebanon is a democracy, with a long history of being a democracy. Mr. Speaker, it will not be a functional democracy, it will not be a democracy that people like our President will speak of in those terms, until the outside forces that have dominated their very ability to exercise that democracy are pushed out, by diplomacy, if possible, by greater measures of the UN and the rest of the world if necessary.
Mr. Speaker, I call for all of my fellow Members to vote for this resolution and to stand tall in support of Lebanon's attempt to be a real democracy in the Arab world.
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