Threat Of Islamic Radicalism

THREAT OF ISLAMIC RADICALISM -- (Senate - January 11, 2007)

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I come to the Chamber to speak on the preeminent issue facing our country today, and that is the threat of Islamic radicalism, and specifically to respond to the comments of some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle regarding the President's speech and the plans he has announced for our fighting forces in Iraq last night.

As I have tried to sift through the differences of opinion--and here again, among people of good will who love their country and who are true patriots--I am forced to conclude that the division or faultline falls between those who have simply given up and do not believe the situation in Iraq is salvageable and those who believe the President's plan offers the last best hope for success in Iraq.

I agree with those who say you cannot look at Iraq as if through a soda straw, as if that is the only challenge facing the United States and the Middle East, because, indeed, failure in Iraq, descension into a civil war, creation of a failed state will undoubtedly create a regional-wide conflict that will necessitate the United States and its allies reentering the conflict at some later date were Iraq unable to sustain and defend and govern itself, as the Iraq Study Group said it must.

Indeed, I believe it is incumbent upon those who say the only solution is to draw down our troops in a gradual redeployment to explain what they intend to do when Iraq descends into a failed state, creating another platform, as Afghanistan did once the Soviet Union left that country, which gave rise then to the Taliban and al-Qaida. What is their plan to deal with that consequence if, in fact, that is what occurs, if the United States leaves Iraq before it is able to sustain itself, to govern itself, and defend itself?

I congratulate the members of the new majority, but I must say, with the new majority comes not only the privilege of setting the Nation's agenda in the Congress but also the duty of governing. It is not acceptable to merely criticize, particularly if you are in the majority. We need to know what their alternative plan is for this unacceptable possibility of failure in Iraq if, in fact, we are to cut the legs out from under the Maliki government and simply withdraw before the Iraqis are able to sustain themselves.

Mr. President, I am one of those who have not given up on Iraq and who believe that our fighting forces in Iraq are doing a lot of good. It is true, as the President said, that mistakes have been made, but it is important to recognize that the initial threat in Iraq was of a Saddam Hussein delivering weapons of mass destruction and technology about biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons to terrorists to use against us, as the terrorists did on 9/11. Even a remote possibility that might happen was unacceptable. We voted with a vote of 77 Senators--on a bipartisan basis--to authorize the President to use military force to take out Saddam Hussein.

I don't need to recount the failures of our intelligence community that led us to erroneously believe he actually at that time did have weapons of mass destruction. But there is no question at all that Saddam Hussein sought weapons of mass destruction, much as his neighbor now to the east, Iran, seeks nuclear weapons itself. It is simply unacceptable, in a world where there are those driven by a radical ideology that celebrates the murder of innocent civilians, as al-Qaida and other Islamic radicals do, to allow them to get weapons of mass destruction and then to use them on innocent civilian populations, whether it is in the United States or abroad.

It is true that the President has said that this is a test for the Maliki government. We are putting a lot of reliance, yet pressure, on the Maliki government to perform. When Prime Minister Maliki

said he will stand up to the death squads and Shiite militias, like that of al-Sadr, we will hold him to his word.

It is absolutely critical to the success of reconstruction in Iraq, to a peaceful self-determination through a democratic form of government, that the security situation in Iraq be stabilized. The only way that is going to happen is if a lawful government of Iraq obtains a monopoly on the legal use of force in that country. Right now, the people of Iraq don't trust their own Government to provide that sort of security, so they have broken down along sectarian lines and relied upon Shiite militias and other extralegal groups to try to provide that security. But what happened is that we have seen retribution killings between different ethnic groups. But the threat is that sort of sectarian violence is not going to be contained just to Iraq but will spill over into the region. Iran will use the opportunity of Shiite violence to exact ethnic cleansing on Sunni populations in Iraq. Iran will use its ability to expand its influence into Iraq, perhaps to expand its own borders.

That will not go without some response by the Sunni majority nations in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, for example, has already expressed grave concern that if the Shiite militias and others continue to exact violence upon the Sunni population, they may very well find a necessity to become involved and, indeed, we know that what some people view as if through a soda straw, violence in Iraq will become a regional conflict.

Is there any doubt that if, in fact, we fail in Iraq because we have given up, because we don't believe Iraq and the Middle East is worth this last best chance for success, is there any doubt that the oil and gas reserves in that region of the world will be used as an economic weapon against the United States? So not only will we have a security vulnerability using that platform of a failed state as a launching pad for future terrorist attacks, much as al-Qaida did in Afghanistan following the fall of the Soviet Union in that country, but is there any doubt that in addition to additional terrorist attacks in the United States and among our allies and around the world, that the oil and gas reserves in that region will be used as an economic weapon to wreak a body blow against the rest of the world?

So with winning the election on November 7 and gaining the majority and the mandate of the American people comes responsibility. The responsibility of our Democratic colleagues is to point out what their plans are when Iraq fails if we do not even try, as the President has proposed last night, to salvage the situation there by a change of course, by working with our Iraqi allies, backing them up, stiffening their backbone, to restore the security environment there so that reconstruction and democracy and self-government can flourish. I don't know whether it will work. I don't know whether anyone can ever guarantee in a time of war that one side or the other will be successful. But the consequences of giving up and of failure are simply too horrendous to contemplate, present too great a risk to the American people and civilized people around the world, for us not to try.

That, to me, is the choice we have been given--between trying, using the last best effort we can come up with through this change of course in Iraq, or simply giving up. I would like to hear from our colleagues what their plan is if Iraq does descend into that failed state, if a regional conflict occurs and it then becomes necessary at a future date not to send an additional 20,000 American troops but far more to protect America's national security interests.

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