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“IRAN” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2406-H2409 on April 22, 2015.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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IRAN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I do want to commend my friend from California (Mr. Schiff) for what he is doing. I think it is a very noble thing to do when people are killed. Whether you want to call it a genocide or not, I just appreciate very much my friend Adam Schiff calling those names and giving them recognition after the hell on Earth they went through. It was a very noble endeavor.
Mr. Speaker, what I came to the floor to talk about is the so-called deal that the administration is trying in every way they can to get Iran to even just say that they are okay with. Unfortunately, the Iranians have been dragging this out for years now. I read that Valerie Jarrett had been talking before with the Iranians before the deal--the negotiations, at least--ever surfaced. And we have reports that there was an informal negotiation taking place. It was denied back originally, and it turns out there were negotiations.
So what this has done to Israel--our ally, our friends in Israel, the people that are actually our forward observers out there in the middle of the chaotic Middle East that this administration has helped make more chaotic--they are out there, and they are kind of like, as some people have referred to them, the miner's canary. When they are under attack, when they are struggling because of other countries, then we can anticipate the United States will be shortly behind it.
Here is an article from The Wall Street Journal dated April 17, entitled, ``U.S. Suggests Compromise on Iran Sanctions,'' the byline,
``President Obama said Tehran could receive significant economic relief immediately after concluding a deal to curb its nuclear program.''
Isn't that great, though? We are now using the word ``curb'' their nuclear deal. At one time, it was to ``dismantle'' their nuclear efforts. At one time, it was going to be totally unacceptable for Iran--probably the biggest supporter of terrorism in the world. Certainly they have supported plenty of terrorism that has killed Americans. They have built and used and furnished IEDs that have killed and maimed so many thousands of Americans. But now we are down, at this point, to just curbing. If we can just curb them, apparently that will be satisfactory.
And after the last so-called mutual agreement was announced, we had the leaders of Iran saying, We didn't agree to any of that.
Now having been a former judge, having tried no telling how many cases, I know that if you have one side saying ``we have an agreement'' and the other side saying ``we never agreed to anything,'' and that is before any of the terms of the agreement are ever undertaken by either side, then you don't have an agreement. They teach you it is basic contracts.
I know the President, in Chicago, was concentrating on the Constitution, but the fact is, under contract law, one of the contract 101 things they teach you is, you have to have a mutual meeting of the minds. If one side says, ``We haven't agreed to anything,'' and you don't have a document they signed, and you don't have a tape recording even of them saying, ``Yes, we agree to those things,'' you don't have a deal. You don't have an agreement. There is absolutely nothing enforceable. And the interesting thing about international law is, basically, if the most powerful country in the world is not willing to enforce something that it says is an agreement, then it doesn't matter whether you have got an agreement or not.
I was very fortunate to have had, for a semester at Baylor Law School, a visiting dean of a Japanese law school who taught an international law course that I took. I did as well as you can do in that course. Our professor, the visiting dean, was such a brilliant guy. I did a paper on law of the sea and did very well with that.
I loved to sit down and visit with the dean from Japan. After the conclusion of the course, I had my grade. I said: You know, Dean, I hope this is not inappropriate to say; but having taken your course, having studied diligently for your course, it seems to me that the bottom line with international law is that, really, international law is whatever the biggest, most powerful country says it is, if they are willing to use their power. And the dean said; Well, Mr. Gohmert, you did learn something in my course. Yes, you have got it.
In international law, if nobody is willing to stand behind a deal and force another country to abide by the deal, you don't have a deal. You might as well not even have a written agreement in international law if somebody is not willing to enforce it.
Under most people's definition of an act of war, if you would attack an embassy, then for purposes of most people's international law, you have committed an act of war. That embassy is considered to be sovereign. If you attack that embassy, you have attacked that country--
it is an act of war--which is what happened in 1979 in a place called Tehran, Iran.
I was in the Army, stationed at Fort Benning at the time, so we obviously were paying close attention to an act of war against the United States. I think most people at Benning were put on alert, but nothing happened.
An act of war was committed against the United States, but our failure to do anything but basically beg the Iranians to let our hostages come home was deemed as weakness and, as I understand, still is used from time to time today as part of the recruiting effort to show that Americans have no backbone. They are not going to stand up to radical Islamists. Radical Islamists can have their will because America is a toothless tiger, unwilling to enforce anything.
Oh, sure. Somebody, to want to look tough, may send a boat to tag along behind a convoy, and we may send planes to blow up a tent or, like President Clinton did, blow up a camel from time to time. It seemed like there may have been an aspirin factory or something. Maybe there was something more serious, but that is not shock and awe, as we have shown some places before.
So when they are recruiting, of course they use the toothless, feckless United States examples. Like after the USS Cole, I had a servicemember that told me recently he was there and they couldn't believe that anybody could attack a United States naval ship and basically we don't do anything.
I understood from somebody in the Reagan administration that one of President Reagan's great regrets was after, I think it was, probably Iran behind the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut where we lost about 300 precious Marine lives, Congress made clear we are not funding anything else, and we pulled out. Another recruiting tool for radical Islamists.
And even that example from Beirut, under such a great American President as Ronald Reagan, going back to 1979 when radical Islam first committed an act of war against the United States, that was in response to President Carter--at least, it followed his pronouncement that the Ayatollah Khomeini was a man of peace. They hit our Embassy.
I know at first they were saying: Oh, the college students attacked. The college students have the hostages. And it seemed to me, as a member of the United States Army watching the news carefully from Fort Benning, that it seemed like they kept saying, you know, the students have the hostages. And I kept thinking if President Carter will just say: Okay. The students have the hostages. Then you get them back to us within 48 hours or even 72 hours; otherwise, you are going to see the entire power of the United States military coming at Iran. And heaven help you, if you harm our hostages at all, we may just wipe Tehran off the map if you do, and you as part of it.
I really felt like they would probably release the hostages and say: See? See? The students had them. We talked them into releasing them.
But rather quickly, they figured out that the Carter administration was not going to use the U.S. power and that all it was going to do was basically beg for the hostages to be released until they scaled back an effort to rescue the hostages that ended up being inadequate because the Carter administration didn't authorize enough helicopters. They needed six. General Boykin confirmed what I was told at Fort Benning, that they needed six to get to the staging area, crossing 500 miles or so of desert. Their helicopters had turbine engines. They expected that they might lose as many as 50 percent of their choppers. But they had to have six get to the staging area, meet the C-130 there and the other aircraft and get ready and then launch, because they knew where the hostages were.
The Carter administration didn't allow enough helicopters so they could get there with six. They got there with five. And as General Boykin confirmed what I had heard before, when they got there with five, then they had to abort because they had to have a minimum of six to make it work. Perhaps the helicopter pilot got disoriented. The chopper leaned, the blades went through the C-130, and the people on the C-130 and the helicopter were killed.
But it goes back to having a Commander in Chief that is not willing to do everything he can to use our power to save American lives and to send a message around the world: Don't mess with the United States. Don't mess with our Embassy. Don't mess with our Embassy workers, because if you do, there will be a powerful price to pay.
{time} 1815
Mr. Speaker, the message instead was: We got the power, but we don't have the backbone to use it. And that is being carried out. Of course, President Reagan used American power to send a message. President George H. W. Bush, after Kuwait was invaded by Iraq--I love the fact, as a former military member, that President George H. W. Bush was a former military member, and instead of trying to micromanage the freeing of Kuwait, instead of micromanaging, President Bush told the military leaders that the goal is to liberate Kuwait; you tell me what we've got to do. They told him how many people we would need in theater before we attack. You hit them hard with bombing, loosen them up, and the mission went incredibly well until Democrats in Congress started yelling, in essence, figuratively speaking, that President Bush needed to stop, stop, stop. Many in the media, stop, stop, stop, they are not fighting, they can't stand up against us, oh, please stop, you are being too brutal.
So President Bush, because of the left, was persuaded not to go all the way to Baghdad at that time. Then later he was beat up by the left in 1992 for not going ahead and taking out Saddam when he had the chance.
So it is an interesting place to work here.
Mr. Speaker, I go through that history so we understand where we stand historically with radical Islam in the Middle East. They don't see us with the kind of fear that they should.
Now, this article from The Wall Street Journal, dated April 27, by Carol E. Lee and Jay Solomon, says:
``President Barack Obama suggested on Friday that Iran could receive significant economic relief immediately after concluding a deal to curb its nuclear program, a gesture towards one of Tehran's key demands.''
It is really great. Tehran makes demands, the President follows right in line, and Secretary Kerry follows right in line as if he is going to be throwing medals over the White House fence that belonged to somebody else. It is great. They just follow right in line. Okay, Iran, please, we beg you. Do a deal with us. At least come out and announce with us we have a deal, and we will do anything you want.
That is the way it is appearing not only to the radical Islamists of the world. It sure seems that they have our President wrapped around their little finger and that they can get anything they want.
Well, Mr. Speaker, what should they think after the Taliban in Afghanistan was begged by the Obama administration to, gee, just sit down with us, we will buy you wonderful offices in Qatar, and we will give you international prominence. Heck, if you sit down, we will let murderers go of your Taliban leaders. Just sit down with us. That is all we are asking.
It sent a pretty clear message. That gets around. They understand who they are dealing with.
On page 3 of the 4-page article from The Wall Street Journal it says this:
``The Obama administration estimates Iran has between $100 billion and $140 billion of its oil revenue frozen in offshore accounts as a result of sanctions. U.S. officials said they expect Tehran to gain access to these funds in phases as part of a final deal. Iran could receive somewhere between $30 billion and $50 billion upon signing the agreement, said congressional officials briefed by the administration.''
So, Mr. Speaker, that is from The Wall Street Journal. Then 2 days later, April 19, in an article by Jennifer Rubin, it says: ``Washington Post: Obama is prepared to give anything and everything for a deal.'' Then it goes on to say:
``Just days after releasing the Iran framework, Secretary of State John F. Kerry reaffirmed that the United States would insist on phased-
in sanctions relief. Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei publicly rebuked that suggestion and declared he would insist on sanctions relief up front. On Friday, the President cleared up matters by hanging Kerry out to dry, pulling the rug out from under his dwindling band of supporters and telling the world that phased negotiations were up for grabs.
``The President declared:
``With respect to the issue of sanctions coming down--I don't want to get out ahead of John Kerry and my negotiators in terms of how to craft this. I would just make a general observation and that is that how sanctions are lessened, how we snap back sanctions if there's a violation--there are a lot of different mechanisms and ways to do that. Part of John's job and part of the Iranian negotiators' job and part of the P5+1's job is to sometimes find formulas that get to our main concerns while allowing the other side to make a presentation to their body politic that is more acceptable.''
So going down the article, it said:
``This is a dramatic change in the administration's position and a foolish one. We know, as former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George P. Schultz have warned, snap-back sanctions are cumbersome and hugely ineffective. Sanctions once lifted are enormously difficult to reinstate after Western powers have commenced doing business. Inspections (not even of the go everywhere/anytime variety) are never foolproof and the parties contemplate a system designed for endless wrangling about whether violations have occurred.
``But wait. It gets worse. The Wall Street Journal reports: `The Obama administration estimates Iran has between $100 billion and $140 billion of its oil revenue frozen in offshore accounts as a result of sanctions' ''. . . ``The monies of course will be instantly available to fund terrorist activities.''
Well, Mr. Speaker, I guess that wouldn't be President Obama saying that because apparently he hadn't recognized that, but, okay.
The article says:
``That would be a huge boost to Iran's economy, given up front and with no evidence of compliance. The monies of course will be instantly available to fund terrorist activities and Iranian surrogates in Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere.
`` `Obama is willing to grant Iran access to funds that equate to about 10 percent of its GDP' ''--Iran's GDP--`` `just for signing a deal. That percentage boost is equivalent to a $1.7 trillion injection into the U.S. economy today (which is twice the dollar amount of the 2009 stimulus package).' ''
That was explained by JINSA CEO Michael Makovsky.
`` `This was a terrific present to Iran for its Army Day celebration on Saturday, when the regime showed off some of its weapons to slogans of ``Death to America,'' and ``Death to Israel.'' ' He adds, `Equally dismaying was Obama's minimization in the same press conference of Russia's announcement to sell S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries to Iran, which will make a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities much harder. Perhaps Obama was trying to save face by this Russian move, and/or perhaps he no longer opposes the Russian sale because it will make it harder for Israel to spoil the nuclear deal through military action.'
``If Israelis are expressing `shock and amazement Friday night at U.S. President Barack Obama's stated openness to Iran's demand for the immediate lifting of all economic sanctions, and his defense of Russia's agreement to supply a sophisticated air defense system to Iran,' they should not be. The President will give the Iranians anything and everything to get his deal. `It's deeply troubling that President Obama declined to publicly reject Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's demand that all economic sanctions against Iran be lifted upon concluding a final nuclear agreement,' Senator Mark Kirk told Right Turn. `The President is clearly leaving open the door for significant sanctions relief to Iran up front to secure a controversial deal that will neither significantly nor permanently dismantle Iran's vast capabilities to make nuclear weapons.'
``The President who once declared the framework a `historic' deal has been forced to concede there is no deal. Now he is signaling the final deal will be much worse than he or his defenders ever suggested was possible. He promised to dismantle Iran's nuclear weapons program; now he is locking it in. He once insisted on robust inspections and gradual lifting of sanctions. Those will go by the wayside too. Ultimately, Congress, the 2016 Presidential candidates, our allies and the American people will need to explain that total appeasement--which is where this is leading--will not be acceptable. They will then have to devise the means for stopping Obama or immediately reversing his `diplomacy,' which is more like promising to make a ransom payment. Unfortunately for the Saudis, that likely means beginning an arms race as they seek a bomb of their own. It will be quite a legacy if Obama gets his way.''
Mr. Speaker, this President's foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa has created chaos.
Then April 20, there is this article from the Washington Free Beacon:
``The State Department on Monday would not rule out giving Iran up to
$50 billion as a so-called `signing bonus.' '' . . . ``Experts have said this multimillion dollar `signing bonus' option, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, could be the largest cash infusion to a terror-backing regime in recent memory.''
So they are getting access to money, the article points out.
So then, Mr. Speaker, I want to take us back to March 2 from The Blaze, where they report on President Obama saying Netanyahu has been wrong on Iran. And they have this quote in the article, and it quotes from Reuters, this is a quote from Obama, reported by Reuters:
`` `Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief,' Obama told Reuters in an interview Monday. `Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true.' ''
That was March 2. Now here we are on April 22, and it turns out everything Prime Minister Netanyahu said has been true. So far, Mr. Speaker, everything that he has said that we have been able to get evidence on has been true. President Obama was wrong, Prime Minister Netanyahu was right, and knowing President Obama to be the big, courteous, and wonderful man he is, I am sure he will be sending an apology to Prime Minister Netanyahu very soon since he does owe him one. On March 2 he tells Reuters that Netanyahu was wrong on everything, and now just over a month later we find out he was right about everything. So I think that will be good news when the President admits to Israel they were right, I was wrong.
By the way, what could we do with that $50 billion that they may let Iran have access to after all the damage, all the Americans Iran has funded killing and maiming. We could use some of that money. Wow, $50 billion.
But one final article dated today from John Sexton, ``Iran Says It Will Refuse Access to IAEA Inspectors Anywhere' Nationwide.''
``A spokesman for Iran's nuclear agency has once again rejected calls to grant IAEA access to military sites, continuing a war of words on the issue that began Sunday.''
The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, this President is putting the world in jeopardy. He is putting Israel in jeopardy. He is putting us in jeopardy. He is putting all of Israel's neighbors in jeopardy. It is time he woke up and smelled the baklava.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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