Madam Speaker, I rise to bring to the House's attention a potentially, very dangerous new turn in the administration's policies in the Middle East. In recent weeks the administration has been stirring up the pot on Iran again, and that has caused many Americans to worry that the administration is getting ready to launch another attack in the region, this time in Tehran.

In fact, there's more than enough evidence to show that the administration may be laying the groundwork for military action. In an interview last month, the President said that the Iranians, and I quote him, he said, ``the Iranians have declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people.''

That would be troubling, Madam Speaker, if it were true. But the Iranians haven't said anything of the kind. It is shocking to me that our Commander-in-Chief would make unsubstantiated and misleading statements about a subject as important and as serious as nuclear weapons.

Another troubling sign came last month when Admiral William Fallon retired. Admiral Fallon was a bulwark against the Iran hawks in the administration, and his departure raised fears that he was, first, forced to retire, and that next, the rush to war was on.

And several weeks ago, Vice President Cheney said that he has ``high confidence'' that the Iranians have an ongoing nuclear enrichment program. Of course, the most recent national intelligence estimate reported that the Iranians stopped working on a suspected nuclear weapons program 4 years ago.

And finally, General Petraeus told Congress last week that Iranian-backed special groups now pose the greatest long-term threat in Iraq.

For years, the administration told us that the main enemy was al Qaeda or Sunni insurgents, or Shiite militia. Now they tell us, forget them; it's Iran. In my mind, this raises legitimate concerns that the administration may be inventing new excuses to stay in Iraq by trying to convince the American people to support war against Iran.

Madam Speaker, I too am concerned about Iran. The Iranians should stay out of Iraq. They should not develop nuclear weapons. No country should develop nuclear weapons. But if we want Iran to behave well, we must stop threatening to attack them. Instead, our first line of defense must be engagement and aggressive diplomacy.

The absolutely essential first step in that process must be the redeployment of our troops out of Iraq. How can we expect Iraq's neighbors to cooperate in stabilizing the region while we insist on an open-ended foreign occupation with 140,000 troops and tens of thousands of military contractors?

Ending the occupation will allow us to launch a broad initiative to bring the nations in the region to the table, to address the relevant, the political, the economic and the security issues.

And Madam Speaker, when it comes to Iran's nuclear challenge, we must retake the high moral ground in the United States of America. When we turn our backs on nuclear nonproliferation, abandon the comprehensive test ban treaty and develop new nuclear weapons of our own, under what circumstances can we tell another nation to abandon their nuclear dreams?

The American people do not want a wider conflict in the Middle East. They want our leaders to spend every waking moment working to bring peace to the region. This is not the time for heated rhetoric, for bullying and new threats. It is time to try the one thing we haven't tried, diplomacy.