Wayne T. Gilchrest

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak today on Resolution 362 that is circulating in the House and its impact on policy in the Middle East.

As a result of Resolution 362 and its tightening of sanctions on Iran in a more broader way, will that have a positive impact on America's policy in the Middle East? Will it have a positive impact on the politics in the Middle East? Will it have a positive impact on Iran as far as the conflict between our two nations is concerned?

I will say, in my judgment, Mr. Speaker, that Resolution 362 will exacerbate, make much more difficult, the problems in the Middle East, the relationship of Iran with its neighbors in the Middle East, and the relationship of Iran with the United States, and the relationship of Iran with the country of Israel. Let me try to explain why.

If we look at the Middle East right now in a very objective fashion, what is going on in the Middle East right now?

The geopolitical balance of power in the Middle East right now is fractured. We are focusing on the conflict in Iraq. We need as a Nation to focus objectively on the Palestinian-Israeli question, to resolve that issue, to reduce the number of recruits for al Qaeda and the Taliban.

We need to understand that Saudi Arabia, a Sunni country, does not want Iraq, a Shia country, to become an Iranian satellite.

We need to understand that Iran, who lost more men dead in a conflict with Iraq just a few years ago than we lost in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam combined, wants to have some influence in the Middle East and certainly with what will go on in Iraq.

What will influence the direction the Middle East will take in the decades to come? There is violent conflict there. There is political conflict there. There is mistrust in the Middle East.

Let me use a quote from Sam Rayburn, former Speaker of the House. ``Any mule can kick a barn door down, but it takes carpenters to rebuild that door and that barn.''

We need carpenters. We need diplomats. More conflict, more restrictions, more sanctions is going to further exacerbate the problem in the Middle East and its relationship with the country of Iran.

One other quick comment. Iran is not an Arab country. Iran is a Persian nation that speaks Farsi, that does not speak Arabic. It is a nation of Shias with their own brand of Islam.

Knowledge and an informed policy in the Middle East, a surge of diplomacy, can make a key difference. Let me go back and express some precedence of the past about diplomacy and where it worked.

When Nikita Khrushchev said he was going to bury the United States, what was Eisenhower's response? He invited Nikita Khrushchev to the United States to tour the Nation, and it began to lessen the conflict between the two countries.

What did President Kennedy do when there were deployable nuclear weapons in Cuba aimed at the United States? He negotiated his way out of that conflict and saved a catastrophe.

What did Nixon do after Mao Zedong said it would be worth half the population of China being destroyed if we could destroy the capitalists in America? What did Nixon do? He had a dialogue. He went to China.

What happened when we did not have a dialogue, some understanding of Ho Chi Minh? A million people died.

Today in the Middle East we certainly need a strong military, we need a strong intelligence. But the aspect that is missing in the Middle East is what Eisenhower said was so critical in foreign policy; that is, consensus and dialogue.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of Members in this house that have started a long time ago, a couple of years, beginning a dialogue with the Iranians. Just last fall, 58 Members of this House on both sides of the aisle signed a letter to the parliament in Iran asking for a parliamentary exchange; 58 Members of Republicans and Democrats. That letter was hand-delivered by some of us in Lisbon to Iranian parliamentarians. They took it to Iran. And what is their response to us? They want a dialogue. There are members of the Iranian parliament that want a dialogue. Consensus and dialogue.

We need more carpenters. Vote against Resolution 362.

I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding.

I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland, the other gentleman from Maryland, for working on this project, the Gateways and Watertrails system. It is a system, Mr. Speaker, that provides, as the gentleman from Maryland described, public education about the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay and what an individual can do not only to enjoy the landscape, not only to explore and paddle the landscape, but to understand the landscape.

Now, a lot of discussion here recently has been about energy, fossil fuels, should we drill for more oil? The issue of the Gateways is about education. A quote from Norman Cousins, the editor of the Saturday Evening Post some 30 or 40 years ago, said, ``Knowledge is the solvent for danger.'' So let's focus on a little bit of information, knowledge. The United States can never become energy independent if it continues to be dependent on fossil fuel. There is simply not enough here. We peaked in the 1970s. Energy from fossil fuels has created the situation we now call ``climate change'' or ``global warming.'' Global warming creates a transition for the Chesapeake Bay. This is not a geologic transition. This is not a natural forces transition from a changing ecology. This is a human-forced transition for the Chesapeake Bay that will continue to degrade the water. What can we do about it? One of the things is a source of education, a source of knowledge.

The Gateways program involves the public in understanding some amazing things. Number one, the geology of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Why is the Chesapeake Bay here? Why is the Delmarva Peninsula here? An understanding of how geologic forces created this magnificent estuary over millions of years.

Number two, Gateways helps people understand the ecological evolution of the Chesapeake Bay. Why are there forests here? Why is there a whole range of song birds or water foul or marine life? It is a magnificent place unknown anywhere else on the continent but the Chesapeake Bay. The ecological evolution of the Chesapeake Bay.

And the other thing the Gateways program does is help us understand human history, when the first Native Americans got here about 10,000 years ago, to John Smith 400 years ago, to the transition that we see today in the Chesapeake Bay. The Gateways and Watertrails program is an educational program.

To understand the transition that the bay is now going through is not a geological change. It's not an ecological change. It's that human activity is not compatible with nature's design. And this program helps us understand those views so we can be a part of the solution and not part of the problem.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to submit in the Record an opinion piece by Marshall Breger, a former alternate delegate of the U.S. to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, and currently a professor of law at the Columbus School of Law, the Catholic University of America. In it, he discusses the importance of religion in negotiating peace through diplomacy.

Faith in Diplomacy

(By Marshall Breger)

Whatever one's view of the Oslo peace process, it is

remarkable that the 1993 signing ceremony on the White House

lawn did not include benedictions by rabbis, imams, or

priests. In an America where religious leaders open sessions

of Congress, pray for the success of our armies, and even

sometimes pray for fair winds and bless the fleet at yachting

regattas, this is passing strange.

The absence of religious content speaks volumes about the

assumptions that drive conventional diplomatic wisdom in

Washington. Foreign policy professionals instinctively recoil

at the notion that religion can or should play an important

role in foreign policy. They see it as a ``private matter,''

according to Tom Farr, former director of the State

Department's office of international religious freedom,

``properly beyond the bounds of policy analysis and action.''

Far too many American diplomats and think-tank gurus

continue to dismiss or, at best, ignore religion as ``a tool

of statecraft.'' They talk about promoting ``civil society''

but forget that in regions as diverse as the Middle East and

South Asia, the largest and most powerful actors in civil

society are religious. They assume that a ``moderate'' Muslim

is a less religious Muslim, and that an ``Islamist'' who

believes that Islam should play a role in politics must be in

his or her heart a bomb-throwing extremist. They treat

religion as a distraction to diplomacy and a threat to global

stability.

Academic theories of modernization teach that as societies

modernize they irrevocably grow more secular. But the truth

is otherwise. Sociologist Peter Berger contends that

religious sensibility does not wither in the modern world.

Even the State Department, long a bastion of secularist

thinking, is beginning to get the picture. In a powerful book

written after she left the State Department, former secretary

Madeleine Albright effectively offered a mea culpa for

ignoring religion while she was in office. And Karen Hughes,

former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and

public affairs, said that President Bush wanted her ``to

reach out and meet with religious leaders--because faith is

such an important part of life for so many Americans and so

many people across the world.''

How should we incorporate religion in our foreign policy?

First, we must study it. You can't understand West Bank

settlers without understanding the ``Greater Israel''

theology of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook and his disciples. Nor can

you follow Shia politics without an appreciation of the role

of the ashura--the commemoration of the death of the

Prophet Mohammed's grandson in the 680 battle of Karbala--

as the transformative event in Shia martyrology, or the

oft-misunderstood role of the mahdi--the ``hidden Imam''

expected to bring justice and final judgment to the

world--in Shia eschatology. Or how the ``puritanism'' of

18th-century theologian Mohammed Ibn Abd-al Wahab has

affected the Salafi understanding of the Quran.

Only by understanding religion can we mobilize it as a

force for reconciliation and as an ally in the search for

peaceful solutions. No one can deny the injurious role

religious fervor has had in foreign affairs--just think of

the Thirty Years' War and Osama bin Laden. Nonetheless, we

know of many examples of how religion can assist in the

process of making peace. Consider the Community of

Sant'Edigio, which has midwived cease-fires in conflict zones

like Mozambique. The Vatican mediated the Argentina-Chile

dispute over the Beagle Channel, and evangelical Christians

have helped place international religious freedom, AIDS, and

global poverty on the major powers' foreign policy agendas.

Jewish groups, for their part, have led the campaign to end

the violence in Darfur.

In 2002, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders in the

Middle East signed the Alexandria Declaration of the

Religious Leaders of the Holy Land, committing themselves to

the dignity of the individual, whatever his or her religion,

and an end to bloodshed. That work is being carried on by

groups like Mosaica and the Adam Institute and by other

religious leaders such as Knesset member Rabbi Michael

Melchior and Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, founder of the

Islamic movement in Israel.

Religious leaders in Jerusalem have formed a Council of

Religious Institutions of the Holy Land to promote not just

interfaith dialogue, but also practical advances like access

to and protection of holy sites; religious freedom; education

for tolerance in mosques, synagogues, and churches; and

support for a two-state solution that recognizes the dignity

of both Israelis and Palestinians. This nascent enterprise

includes religious leaders such as the Latin patriarch, chief

rabbis, and Sheikh Taysir Al-Tamimi, head of the Sharia

courts of Palestine.

These developments make clear that religious leaders can

foster reconciliation in the Middle East and elsewhere. To

succeed, any new peace initiative must encompass their

efforts. Perhaps this time around we can avoid the religious

deficit of so much previous American diplomacy.