Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act -- Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, it has been nearly 2 years since the
Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad attacked his own people with sarin gas,
crossing President Obama's so-called red line. At the time, President
Obama grudgingly called for airstrikes against Assad but hesitated at
the moment of decision. When Secretary of State Kerry opened the door
to a negotiated solution, Vladimir Putin barged in, allowing Assad the
pretext of turning over his chemical weapons to avoid U.S. airstrikes.
The amen chorus proclaimed a strategic master stroke.

But it wasn't so. Street-smart observers were onto Assad's game. He
only needed to keep a tiny fraction of his chemical stockpile to retain
his military utility. Syria thus could open most--but not all--of its
facilities at no cost to the regime.

In fact, because most of Syria's chemical agents were old,
potentially unreliable yet still dangerous, the regime actually
benefitted by getting the West to pay for the removal of the old
stockpiles.

And where are we now? Exactly where a few of my colleagues and I
warned we would be. News reports just this week indicate that the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has discovered new
evidence of sarin gas and VX nerve agent--9 months after the
organization declared Syria had disposed of all of its chemical
weapons. In the meantime, Assad has simply shifted to chlorine gas for
chemical attacks against his own people, which is also prohibited by
the Chemical Weapons Convention, even though Syria signed that
convention as part of President Obama's deal in 2013.

I am appalled by these reports that the Syrian regime has obtained
stocks of chemical weapons, but I cannot say I am surprised. Anyone
with eyes to see knew the message President Obama had sent. When he
flinched in 2013 in the face of Assad's brazen and brutal
use of sarin gas on civilians, it only emboldened Assad to continue
testing U.S. resolve.

Of course, the fallout goes far beyond Syria. The failure to enforce
the U.S. red line against the use of chemical weapons in Syria has
severely damaged U.S. credibility around the world. I hear this message
from leaders of countries not just in the region but across the globe.
The message sounds most loudly with Iran, where the Ayatollahs continue
their headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities with impunity.
Regrettably, then, we are reaping the bitter fruits of President
Obama's weakness in 2013.

There are two simple lessons we must draw from this sad sequence of
events. First, our country's word on the international stage must be
good and it must be credible. When a President draws a red line and
fails to back it up, it only emboldens our enemies and makes America
appear as the weak horse. Remember, Osama bin Laden famously said that
when given the choice between a weak horse and a strong horse, people
will, by nature, root for the strong horse. Under Barack Obama, America
increasingly looks like the weak horse.

Second, we cannot trust tyrannical regimes to abide by agreements
unless we force them to do so. This means that any agreement with Iran
about its nuclear weapons program must contain the most stringent
conditions, impose the most intrusive verification procedures, and
ultimately prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability.

The framework agreement President Obama has reached with Iran meets
none of those standards. Moreover, the administration's concealment of
Syria's cheating surely foreshadows how it will look the other way when
Iran cheats on any final deal.

Assad's cheating on his chemical weapons agreement today is
devastating for the people of Syria, but Iran's cheating on a nuclear
agreement in the future could be catastrophic for the United States and
the world at large.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source