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[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 117 (Thursday, August 2, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H5692-H5695]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                        IRAN'S NUCLEAR AMBITIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kelly). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) is 
recognized for 32 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I thank the previous gentleman 
here. His comments were very compelling to me.
  Mr. Speaker, before I begin my comments tonight, let me just 
sincerely say that I hold in my heart this privilege of being a Member 
of the American family and this United States Congress to be a 
priceless gift of God. And I would ask that my comments tonight would 
be heard in that context, and I would even dare to hope, Mr. Speaker, 
that you and the Members of this body might grant me a modicum of 
understanding befitting the conviction and the gravity that give 
impulse to the statements that I make tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, the very first responsibility of human government is to 
protect its people. Many times during the nearly 4 years of the Obama 
administration, I have stood on this floor and have called upon this 
administration to address the grave threat posed by Iran's nuclear 
program.
  When I first began calling for Iran to be referred to the Security 
Council, they possessed only 157 centrifuges, Mr. Speaker. But tonight, 
Iran possesses more than 9,000. And tonight I stand here with such a 
sense of urgency that I find it difficult to articulate, Mr. Speaker. I 
believe we may be facing the very last window this world will ever have 
before it becomes too late to prevent jihad from becoming armed with 
nuclear weapons and shattering the peace and security of human freedom 
as we have known it.
  Because this administration has delayed and sent ambiguous messages 
to Iran and the world, as of approximately 3 months ago, Iran reached 
the point where it now possesses all the components necessary to become 
a nuclear-armed nation.
  Mr. Speaker, Iran has the knowledge, the technical expertise, the 
equipment, everything necessary to build a nuclear warhead. They need 
no new technology, no new personnel, no new parts or resources of any 
kind from anyone. All they need now is time and lack of intervention.
  Mr. Speaker, if Iran is allowed to gain nuclear weapons, it will 
unequivocally transform the landscape of human freedom as we have known 
it throughout the world. The world's primary financier of terrorism 
will be armed with nuclear warheads. A desperate arms race will rage 
across the entire Middle East. Israel will be in range of nuclear 
missiles in the hands of a jihadist enemy who despises them, is 
dedicated to their complete annihilation and capable of obliterating 
their entire nation in 15 minutes.

[[Page H5693]]

                              {time}  1830

  America and our allies will then face an enemy with the ultimate 
asymmetric capability of a nuclear-generated high-altitude 
electromagnetic pulse potentially capable of devastating our electric 
grid and the civilizational architecture it sustains.
  Jihadists the world over will have access to nuclear weapons, and the 
world's children, Mr. Speaker, will have forever etched in their memory 
that moment in history when this government allowed the hellish shadow 
of nuclear jihad to fall across their future.
  For almost 4 years, Mr. Speaker, we have witnessed the same weakness, 
naivete, vacillation, ambiguity, and delusional policy toward radical 
jihadists in Iran that once allowed them to hold 56 American hostages 
for 444 days during the Carter administration. That failed approach, 
that failed understanding now saturates nearly every policy corner of 
the Obama administration as Iran seeks to gain a nuclear grip on 
America's throat.
  As always, any credible threat should be evaluated by whether an 
enemy possesses both the intention and the capacity to inflict harm. 
The despotic regime now governing Iran has been explicitly clear in its 
intention toward the United States. Official military parades in Iran 
have, for years, routinely featured a litany of slogans calling for 
death to Israel, death to America.
  President Ahmadinejad was speaking to the whole world when he said:

       And you, for your part, if you would like to have good 
     relations with the Iranian nation in the future, recognize 
     the Iranian nation's greatness and bow down before the 
     greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't 
     accept to do this, the Iranian nation will later force you to 
     surrender and bow down.

  Does that sound like someone who thinks he knows something that we 
don't?
  Ahmadinejad also said:

       Israel is about to die and will soon be erased from the 
     geographical season.

  Then he added:

       The time for the fall of the satanic power of the United 
     States has come, and the countdown to the annihilation of the 
     emperor of power and wealth has started.

  Iranian Basij Commander Naqdi said:

       As long as America exists, we will not rest. We must create 
     the environment for the destruction of America.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has consistently denied the existence of the 
Holocaust, Mr. Speaker, calling it a myth or a fabrication. And in the 
same breath, he threatens to make it happen again by repeatedly calling 
for the destruction of the Jewish State, for Israel to be ``wiped off 
the map.'' He has said, point blank:

       The wave of the Islamist revolution will soon reach the 
     entire world. Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the 
     fire of the Islamic nation's fury.

  And just today, Mr. Speaker, just today, Ahmadinejad called for the 
annihilation of Israel again.
  Mr. Speaker, the Pentagon estimates that hundreds of U.S. soldiers 
have died, as many as three and four of our casualties, as a result of 
Iran supplying terrorists in Iraq with weapons such as highly 
sophisticated explosive form penetrators designed to destroy American 
armor and vehicles. What possesses us to believe that they would not do 
the same with nuclear weapons?
  Former Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said:

       My worst nightmare is terrorists with nuclear weapons. Not 
     only do I know that they are trying to get them, but I know 
     they will use them.

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Iran:

       the major terrorist-sponsoring state of our time. Tehran 
     could give those nuclear weapons to terrorists, or give them 
     a nuclear umbrella that would bring terrorism beyond our 
     wildest dreams.

  Mr. Speaker, can we allow a man like Ahmadinejad, leading the world's 
most dangerous regime, to be able to disseminate nuclear weapons to 
terrorists and to have his finger on the button that could launch 
nuclear missiles targeting our families and our children?
  And how do we negotiate with a nuclear Iran, as Senator Obama 
suggested, when their jihadist ideology considers Armageddon a good 
thing?
  Mr. Speaker, even without nuclear weapons, the Iranian regime has 
remained relentless and undeterred in its efforts to harm America, 
Israel, and Western interests. In October of last year, our 
intelligence interdicted an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi 
Arabian Ambassador and to detonate bombs at both the Saudi Arabian and 
the Israeli Embassies right here in Washington, D.C. Tapes in American 
possession show that the Iranians were unconcerned with ``collateral 
damage.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, translated, that means dead Americans. It 
also means that Iran has no fear whatsoever of the Obama 
administration.

  And now, in recent days, we have learned that Iran was behind another 
barbaric attack, a terrorist attack on innocent civilians, when its 
terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, bombed a Bulgarian bus, killing five 
innocent Israeli citizens and killing a pregnant woman and including 
dozens more. Imagine how emboldened Iran will become if they are 
allowed to come into possession of nuclear weapons.
  Specifically, Mr. Speaker, imagine for a moment the scenario of 
Hezbollah, one of Iran's terrorist proxies, gaining possession of just 
two nuclear warheads and bringing them across the border into the 
United States concealed, say, in bales of marijuana--this shows you 
that they can get them in--when transporting them into the heart of two 
different crowded unnamed cities and then calling and telling the White 
House exactly when and where the first one will be detonated, and then 
following through 60 seconds later.
  Then imagine them, Mr. Speaker, calling the White House back and 
making demands, which, if they're not met, would mean that the second 
warhead would also be detonated in a different unnamed American city. 
The entire United States would be held hostage by terrorist monsters, 
Mr. Speaker.
  Or imagine if those same terrorists acquired two small cargo ships 
carrying mobile launchers with SCUD missiles from Iran's existing 
arsenal and used them to launch those two warheads in a coordinated and 
devastating high-altitude electromagnetic pulse attack over the 
homeland of the United States.
  Well, the fact is, Mr. Speaker, that Iran is pursuing the means 
whereby they could assist groups like Hezbollah to do exactly these 
kinds of horrifying things. The only components they lack to proceed 
are the nuclear warheads.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no longer a single rational defense for the 
argument that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons capability.
  So let me say this, and pray that the Members of this body and pray 
that the President and this Nation understand. If Iran gains nuclear 
weapons, they will give them to terrorists the world over. And still, 
as the centrifuges in Iran are spinning, the Obama administration is 
fiddling, and many of the Members of this body stand by and 
contemplate.
  Have we lost our minds?
  Mr. Speaker, President Obama has allowed Iran to rope-a-dope this 
administration in so-called peace talks that have burned the clock for 
nearly 4 years of his Presidency. The President has made stern warnings 
and then backed down every time. We've endured five rounds of peace 
talks, five different proposals, six different United Nations 
resolutions, and more than a dozen sets of economic sanctions.
  The House just voted yesterday on another Iran sanctions bill that 
was so weakened and watered down by Mr. Obama and his supporters in the 
Senate that it is now barely worth the paper it's written upon. The 
administration's focus has been on sanctions, and weak sanctions at 
that, Mr. Speaker. And even then, Mr. Obama has granted waivers to 
further weaken the sanctions already in place.
  Now, I wonder if this administration has considered the fact that we 
have had economic sanctions against North Korea for over 60 years, and 
in recent decades we have sanctioned them nearly into starvation. And 
yet during that time, they have tested nuclear warheads twice. And it's 
a genie that we cannot put back in the bottle, Mr. Speaker.
  President Ahmadinejad has said of economic sanctions:

       If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we 
     will not be harmed. They can issue resolutions for 100 years.

  Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran's nuclear policies would 
not change, no matter the pressure. He said:

       With God's help, and without paying attention to 
     propaganda, Iran's nuclear course

[[Page H5694]]

     should continually remain firmly and seriously. Pressures, 
     sanctions, and assassinations will bear no fruit. No 
     obstacles can stop Iran's nuclear work.

                              {time}  1840

  Mr. Obama's own Director of National Intelligence was asked by the 
Senate Intelligence Committee whether sanctions had any effect on the 
course of Iran's nuclear program. The answer was simple, Mr. Speaker, 
``No, none whatsoever.''
  I've said many times, starting long ago, that we should have pursued 
truly effective sanctions, dissident support, regime change, and 
political pressures to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed 
state. But without the conviction in the minds of the Iranian 
leadership that military intervention will occur if they continue to 
develop nuclear weapons, none of these other approaches will change 
their minds. Our greatest hope to prevent military action against Iran 
was to make sure their leaders understood that the free world would 
respond militarily before we allowed them to threaten it with nuclear 
weapons.
  Unfortunately, Iran's radical leaders concluded that Barack Obama 
simply lacked the understanding or the resolve to use military action 
to prevent their nuclear weapons development. And why would they 
conclude anything else, Mr. Speaker? Even now, the stated goal of the 
Obama sanctions policy is simply to get Iran back to the negotiating 
table where they can waste even more time and gain even more valuable 
advances. And if we do get them back to the negotiating table, Mr. 
Speaker, what compromise can we seek--maybe that Iran keeps only a 
small number of nuclear weapons? No, Mr. Speaker. If Iran is hell-bent 
on getting nuclear weapons, there is no diplomatic solution.
  In the popular revolt in Iran in 2009, the President could have 
assisted the dissidents and the peace-loving, decent people of Iran, of 
which there are so many, to overthrow their oppressors in the Iranian 
regime--or at least he could have spoken up on their behalf when they 
were out dying in the streets to try to bring about regime change, 
which, if they had been successful, could have changed all of this 
equation. But the President left them twisting in the wind.
  To call Mr. Obama a bystander in all of this is to be charitable. The 
truth is, Mr. Speaker, he has been nowhere to be found. Many 
congressional Republicans have written and pleaded with this President 
numerous times on this vital issue to absolutely no avail.
  The truth is that this President has waited too long. He has waited 
so long that the equation now before us has no good answer. His 
policies have only helped Iran accelerate their nuclear program. Iran 
is now tripling its uranium output, moving enrichment facilities deep 
under a mountain near Qom and restraining the IAEA from even inspecting 
weaponization facilities.
  Maybe now it is becoming clear why Israel is so very concerned, 
because for them, a nuclear Iran is not just an academic question--it 
calls into question their very survival--and the Obama administration 
has now placed Israel into an almost impossible circumstance. Israel 
has watched this President resist an Israeli strike on nuclear 
facilities in Iran more than he has resisted a nuclear Iran. Israel has 
listened to Mr. Obama openly criticize Israel more for building homes 
in their capital city than he has openly criticized Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 
for building nuclear weapons with which to threaten the entire free 
world. In fact, they have watched this administration systematically 
scrub references that Jerusalem is even the capital of Israel.
  Consequently, I believe Israel has known for some time that they can 
no longer trust the Obama administration to act in their best interest.
  They know that Mr. Obama has waited so long that if Israel acts now 
to defend their own nation--and all of us incidentally--that they will 
suffer a far more damaging response from the radical regimes that 
surround them than they otherwise would have. Israel knows that, if 
they wait much longer to attack, the Iranian nuclear facilities may 
well be beyond their conventional military capability. Israel 
desperately needs America and her greater ability to attack heavily 
fortified targets. They need us, Mr. Speaker, but they will act without 
us if they must.
  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said simply and clearly, 
``One thing I'll never compromise on, and that is Israel's security . . 
. When it comes to Israel's survival, we must always remain the masters 
of our fate.''
  So what is this administration's present strategy? ``We're trying to 
make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel.'' The most 
disgraceful part of it is President Obama's threat to withhold resupply 
from Israel to pressure them into his brand of inaction.
  So let me just see if I have this straight, Mr. Speaker. The 
President says, according to his own State Department, that the world's 
greatest supporter of terrorism, a self-avowed enemy of America, with 
an advancing nuclear weapons program, has committed to destroy us and 
Israel and that the President's goal is to prevent Israel--our best and 
most committed friend and national ally on this Earth--from defending 
themselves. Did I get that right?

  Mr. Speaker, that's why Israel will never trust this President with 
their national survival.
  You see, Israel knows the very inconvenient truth that, when it comes 
to a nuclear Iran, if we are to prevent, we must preempt. They know 
that the choice with Iran is no longer a choice between the way the 
world is now and the way the world might be after a military strike to 
prevent them from gaining nuclear weapons. Rather, the choice now is 
between what the world will be like after a preventative military 
strike on Iran or what the world will be like after Iran gains nuclear 
weapons.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we should not deceive ourselves. When the head of 
Israeli intelligence tells the prime minister that Iran is entering 
into that ``zone of immunity'' where Israel will no longer have the 
conventional capacity to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, 
Israel will act.
  They will act knowing that many in the world will condemn them. They 
will act knowing that they will be blamed for any radiation releases 
from Iran's nuclear facilities that might result. They will act knowing 
that thousands of Iranian, Hamas, and Hezbollah rockets and missiles 
will fall upon the cities of their tiny nation in retaliation. They 
will act knowing that it is now extremely difficult for them to 
succeed.
  But, Mr. Speaker, Israel will act because they are students of 
history, and they will not be made to walk silently into the gas 
chambers again.
  They will act because they know that whatever the consequences for 
their actions will be that they will pale in significance compared to 
what the consequences would be for them and for the whole world if the 
jihadist Government of Iran were to gain nuclear weapons.
  And, if and when they do act, the Obama administration will owe an 
apology to the whole world for ignoring this grave reality for so long, 
but Israel will especially deserve an apology--an apology from this 
administration for leaving them with no choice but to act on behalf of 
all of us.
  Mr. Speaker, now, with all of the things I've said tonight, there 
seems to be a profound new irony upon us. This administration finally 
seems to recognize that they have, indeed, waited too long. This 
administration is finally realizing that Israel can no longer stand 
around and wait. It is also beginning to understand if Israel is forced 
to strike Iran's nuclear facilities alone or if Iran tests a nuclear 
weapon before the November 6 election, that the American people and the 
world will damn the Obama administration for their breathtaking 
vacillation. Under such scenarios, the administration very likely sees 
the chances for Mr. Obama to be reelected as virtually zero.
  So it has occurred to me, Mr. Speaker, that the Obama administration 
may have at last found sufficient rationale to move decisively against 
Iran's nuclear weapons program. The President knows that, in times of 
military action, the American people often rally around their 
President. Consequently, in spite of the fact that it has blatantly 
ignored the national security implications of Iran's nuclear program, 
it will now not surprise me at all if this administration launches an 
attack on

[[Page H5695]]

Iran's nuclear facilities before the November elections to protect 
itself politically, even if it is done in concert with Israel to make 
it appear less politically motivated.
  While I believe the American people will see such an action for what 
it is, if a Presidential campaign will finally motivate this 
administration to get serious about our national security and Iran's 
nuclear program, then so be it, Mr. Speaker. It would still be far 
better for the administration to do that than to stand idly by and 
force the tiny state of Israel, our closest friend and ally on this 
Earth, to undertake such a monumental task alone, with all the odds 
against them and facing such crushing consequences whether they succeed 
or fail.
  But it didn't have to be this way. There was a time when Iran's 
nuclear weapons ambitions could have been arrested with far less cost.

                              {time}  1850

  The President has waited too long.
  Mr. Speaker, President Ronald Reagan gave an address in 1983 when the 
world faced a similar threat in the growing strength and nuclear 
ambition of the Soviet Union. Mr. Reagan said:

       I urge you to beware the temptation to ignore the facts of 
     history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to 
     simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and 
     thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and 
     wrong, good and evil.

  Mr. Speaker, there were those in 1938 who deemed the ambitions of 
Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich a giant misunderstanding. The free 
nations of the world once had opportunity to address the insidious rise 
of the Nazi ideology in its formative years when it could have been 
dispatched without great cost, but they delayed, and the result was 
atomic bombs falling on cities, 50 million people dead worldwide, and 
the swastika shadow nearly plunging the planet into Cimmerian night.
  Mr. Speaker, let the world's free people resolve once and for all, 
for the sake of our children and for future generations, that we of 
this generation will not stand by and watch a similar dark chapter of 
history be repeated on our watch.
  God help this administration to wake up, and God help us all as 
Americans to be awake in this destiny year for our beloved country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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