Mr. President, dominant in the news--on which I have expected there to be more coverage--is a matter that I think is of great urgency to the country, global security, and peace--that being the tensions that are rising in the Middle East. I…
Mr. President, dominant in the news--on which I have expected there to be more coverage--is a matter that I think is of great urgency to the country, global security, and peace--that being the tensions that are rising in the Middle East.
I have heard a few of my colleagues speak on the floor about it today, and I have seen a lot of press report on it, some of it absurd and some of it on point. I understand some of it. I thought there should have been more information provided to all of the Members. I am pleased to see that more will be available next week when we return. This is an item I have been talking about for a couple of weeks--of the urgent threat, potentially, that now exists from Iran against the United States, particularly in Iraq but throughout the Persian Gulf region.
First, let me talk about the threat. To understand the threat, it is important to understand how Iran operates.
Iran is an Islamic republic, meaning it has a political branch of its government--a President, a Foreign Minister, and a parliamentary body. Then it has a Supreme Leader, who ultimately governs the country. In essence, his commands overrule the political branches. That is why they call him the Supreme Leader. He is a religious figure. As part of that, it has an armed services--an army, a navy, and an air force--that protects the country, theoretically. Then it has an armed forces that is independent of the army, the navy, and the air force, and that is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC. First of all, it doesn't answer to the President; it doesn't answer to the Foreign Minister; and it doesn't answer to regular army forces. It answers directly to the Supreme Leader. A lot of times, people don't understand this. They ascribe to other countries the attributes of our own.
The President of Iran is not the commander in chief, in reality, of the IRGC. It operates completely separately. By the way, that means that the IRGC--the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps--can oftentimes operate and do things that the Foreign Minister, who is the spokesperson for the Iranian Government, may not even know about. Sometimes it does.
The point is that we have to understand that dynamic. It is not the United States. Our attributes should not be assigned to them.
The IRGC has an organization within it. It has a unit called the Quds Force. The Quds Force, led by General Soleimani, is made up of experts and has developed expertise in unconventional warfare and in intelligence activities, primarily abroad. This is the organization, for example, that helped to build all of the IEDs that killed and maimed American servicemen in Iraq. This is the organization behind the Shia militias in Iraq today. This is the organization behind a lot of the efforts that support Hezbollah in Syria and in other parts of the world.
The IRGC's Quds Force is designed to do things that have some level of deniability. The IRGC Quds Force has developed an ability, in the case of conflict with the United States--and we have known this now for the better part of a decade--to attack us using proxies, meaning other groups, in order to escape and have some level of deniability. It will get some group that
it has stood up, that it has equipped, and that it has trained to attack us in retaliation for something America has done, but it can deny it. It can say: That wasn't our army. That wasn't our air force. That was this other group that did it on its own.
This is a capability we know it has built not just in the Middle East, by the way, but all over the world. We have been aware of it for a long time. It is not a secret to anyone, and it is a capability that it has increasingly perfected.
What has happened here very recently is there has been a persistent and clear stream of information--a clear indication--that has arrived to American policymakers that the IRGC, the Quds Force, and their proxies in the region pose a serious and potentially imminent threat to U.S. forces and U.S. civilians in Iraq and in the broader Middle East.
The President of the United States and the administration are confronted with this information. What is the wholly appropriate thing for them to do? The appropriate thing for them to do is to reposition military assets to the region, No. 1, to protect the Americans who are there in case they come under attack and, No. 2, to be in a position to retaliate.
The reason this is important is you hope to deter this sort of attack. What you are hoping to do is to show them that we have military capabilities in the region so that if we are attacked by their proxies at the direction of the Quds Force, we are going to respond to that forcefully. What you hope that will do, along with public messaging, is get into their heads and make them decide ``We are not going to do this.'' That is what has happened here, and it is wholly appropriate.
For a moment, I want you to imagine. If, in fact, an attack such as this occurred and if, God forbid, hundreds of Americans were killed, the first question everybody would have is, Why didn't we have military assets in the region to protect them? Why couldn't we get them out? That is the first question everyone around here is going to ask.
What the administration has done to pre-position military assets in the region for this potential contingency is entirely appropriate. Also appropriate is the notion that we are not going to start a war, but if we are attacked by Iran's proxies, we are going to respond against those proxies, and we are going to hold Iran responsible. It is going to pay a price for this as well. Who could disagree with the notion that if we are attacked, we have a right to defend ourselves and respond? That is the only thing that is happening here.
I am pleased that in the last day, more Members of the Senate have been made privy to this stream of information so that people can begin to see that the actions the administration has taken up to this point are not just wholly justified but are appropriate. Yet I am concerned about some of the reactions I have seen with regard to this because I think they bode ill both for this case and for the future.
One of the first reactions I have seen is that this is not true, that they are literally making it up, that there is no such intelligence, and that it is being exaggerated. There are even some leakers--I don't know who these people are--who are lying to media outlets about the contents of this intelligence because they have axes to grind against somebody else in the administration, and they want to create embarrassment.
Look, I get this bureaucratic infighting, but I don't understand it when it comes to issues of national security. Even if this information is 50 percent accurate, we have an obligation to err on the side of caution, especially when American lives are on the line.
I encourage all Senators to read this information or access it through their offices and, obviously, when we have a briefing with the appropriate officials, to attend that as well, and I believe you will agree with me.
The second thing I am hearing is ``Oh, this is just a path to war''-- equating this to the Iraq war of over a decade ago. This is nothing like that. That was an offensive operation. That was an invasion of another country. This is not posturing for a military attack; this is military posturing for the purposes of defensive operations. As I have said repeatedly, it is very straightforward: If Iran attacks, there will be a war. If Iran does not attack, there will not be a war.
I think the most disappointing is some insinuation, including by Members of this body--publicly and privately--that somehow, we are going to provoke an attack; that elements of the American Government are going to go out and do something to get Iran to hit us so that we will have an excuse to go to war. I don't know how you prove a negative, but I find that to be wholly unsubstantiated and dangerous.
Let me tell you why this is problematic. What encourages Iran to believe it can get away with this is that it believes if one of these groups--one of the Shia militias in Iraq--attacks us, it is going to be able to say that it is ``not us,'' that it is some rogue group that did it. ``Don't hold us responsible for it.'' The more Iran thinks it can get away with that, the more likely it is to do it. So it is important that this be exposed for what it is.
The second reason Iran thinks it can get away with it is I think it believes it can exploit our political divisions. I think Iran reads these newspapers and watches the news and realizes that some percentage of Americans and, certainly, a significant percentage of Americans in politics is going to, in some way, take Iran's side on this. People are going to say that we provoked it--that this is our fault, that we did something that made Iran mad, that we created the tensions that led to this--or that the intelligence was flawed or that it wasn't Iran but one of these other groups.
By the way, the more of that Iran reads, the likelier it is to do this. That doesn't mean I don't believe we can have a legitimate debate. I support designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization. We can have a legitimate debate about whether that should have been done but not right now. Right now, Americans potentially stand in harm's way, and they need the United States of America to be supporting efforts to defend and to protect them.
Here is what I know none of us can disagree with, I hope: No. 1, that if there is any serious indication that Americans anywhere are threatened, we must position ourselves to protect them, defend them, extract them, and retaliate if they are attacked. The second thing we should all be able to agree on is that if Americans come under attack, even if it is from a proxy force that is directed by a foreign agent like the IRGC, not only must we defend against that attack, but we must punish it with swift retaliation. That should unite us on a matter of incredible importance.
I hope all of the misinformation will stop because this matter is too important with which to play political games.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.