Remarks of the Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Ranking Member
House Foreign Affairs Committee
Hearing on
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank our distinguished witnesses, Ambassador Pickering and Director Woolsey, for agreeing to appear before our Committee today.
Among the highest
priorities for the
The threats posed to the
The line in the sand was first drawn in 1979, when Iranian revolutionaries took over our embassy and held Americans hostage for 444 days.
From that moment onward,
the Iranian regime continued to directly challenge the
We must therefore not fool ourselves into thinking the Iranian threat will somehow go away, if we simply talk to them, for that is a clear path to disaster.
Diplomacy does not mean surrender.
The reach and threat from
We were reminded last Fall that it has long been active in our Hemisphere.
At that time, Argentine prosecutors indicted several senior
Iranian officials, as well as
Unfortunately, due to what some have referred to as “benign
neglect”,
There is increasingly close cooperation between
Iranian leaders have even offered to help Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez build a nuclear program.
Chavez, in turn, recently awarded the President of Iran one
of
But there is an even more
ambitious agenda.
The
It is essential that our allies and responsible nations understand
that
They must also be willing to make sacrifices, as the
However, that level of commitment has been slow in coming.
A generous incentives
package was offered by the West to
An August deadline was
established by the UN Security Council for
Months elapsed before the UN took any further action.
Regrettably, the weak international
response to this defiance has thereby convinced
If
A nuclear-armed
In fact, last week, President
Mubarak of
Some have argued that the solution to the Iranian sponsorship of global terrorism and its development of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons is to engage in direct talks with the Iranian regime.
I strongly disagree.
I support the position taken by Mr. Woolsey and Senator Kyl in a recent letter to President Bush, addressing the specific recommendations of the Iraq Study Group.
In this letter, they
posit that negotiating with
· legitimize the extremist regime,
· embolden our enemies, and
· allow the Iranian radicals to buy more time to develop weapons of mass destruction.
I hope there is no need
to remind anyone that
Instead, we must convince responsible nations to increase pressure on the Iranian regime and deprive it of the revenues it needs to continue its destructive policies.
If our allies cease or, at the very least, reduce their
investments in
As part of this effort,
my distinguished colleague Chairman Lantos and I authored the Iranian Freedom
Support Act, which, among other provisions, calls for sanctions on companies
and individuals investing in
The bill was signed into law in September and is already being used to great effect.
Already, a number of foreign banks have refused to engage in investment and financing of the Iranian energy sector. For example, a Japanese company recently backed out of a $2 billion dollar contract to develop Iranian oil fields.
In addition, we are
currently reviewing closely, an agreement between
If the Chinese company is found to be in violation of the Iran Freedom Support Act, my colleagues in Congress and I will seek to ensure that this Chinese entity is penalized to the fullest extent of the law.
Equally disturbing is
this week’s signing of a $16 billion deal between
In
order to maintain the pressure on
The
first would target Iran’s energy sector by encouraging public and private pension
and thrift savings plans to divest from U.S. and foreign companies that
have invested $20 million or more in that sector.
The
second bill would seek to make
I
look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to
secure passage of these bills in the near future, and to develop additional
measures to tighten the stranglehold on the terrorist regime in
We might have hoped that
with the passage of time,
Their rhetoric alone demonstrates that they may be in the process of becoming even more radical.
The regime has called for
Ultimately, a country must be measured in terms not only of its actions, but in terms of its goals as well. And these strike at the heart of our security.
That challenge cannot be wished away or negotiated away.
It cannot be bought off or ignored.
There are no magic words to be uttered by the UN Security Council that will deliver us. We may have few allies.
These are unpleasant facts, but we have no real choice but to accept them and meet them. For the alternative is to surrender the shaping of our future to a mortal enemy.
I look forward to receiving the remarks, insight, and recommendations of our distinguished panelists, to assess the next steps for U.S. policy—a policy that will, not just delay and contain the threat, but compel Iran to permanently and verifiably, cease its support for terrorism and its pursuit of deadly unconventional weapons.
I would like to once again thank Ambassador Woolsey and Director Pickering for testifying here today and look forward to hearing their testimonies.