Foreign Policy

It is absolutely necessary for the U.S. to engage in a direct dialogue with Iran. Secretary Rice's willingness to move forward with talks with Iran is a move in the right direction at the right time. I hope that the Bush Administration, along with our European allies and Iran's leadership, can agree on a formula for talks to end the current impasse. Now is the time to use preventive diplomacy to ensure that Iran develops nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes and not for weapons of war.

Last August, I, along with Greg Simpkins of the Africa Subcommittee staff, visited Kalma and Mukjar refugee camps in South and West Darfur. We saw first hand how food aid was making the difference between life and death for the thousands of people in the camps. We spoke with many people whose lives had been utterly devastated by the ravages of war, but who were keeping hope alive thanks to the gifts of international humanitarian aid and food aid.

However, our visit to these camps raised a question. What is the Government of Sudan, as well as other developing country governments, going to do about contributing to the elimination of hunger by opening their own stocks of food or by facilitating, rather than hampering, the delivery of food to hungry people in their countries? In Sudan, the government has not only failed to contribute to the feeding of its own people, but has actually interfered with the supply of food to those in need in the Darfur camps like the ones we visited. Moreover, the Government of Sudan placed a commercial embargo on Kalma camp while we were there that prevented the sale of food and other necessary items to those able to buy them in the camps. We in the developed world should help feed those in need, but it also the responsibility of the governments in question to respond to the needs of their own people.  

 

The President is right on the mark that we can’t avoid the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system and that real reform must include a provide a path to citizenship for those who are already here. The American people have made their voices heard loud and clear in support of comprehensive immigration reform; the Senate has resoundingly passed a bipartisan bill that will secure our borders and break the cycle of illegality; and now it is time for Congress to work together in good faith to finish the job. In terms of our national security and our humanity, this is the most important bill the Congress will vote on this year.

Secretary Rice's announcement that the United States will join multilateral discussions with Tehran clearly indicates that we are willing to go the extra mile to ensure a peaceful solution to the international crisis that Iran has created. This is a test for Tehran, and the world will soon see whether Iran's claims of peaceful intent ring true or hollow.

Iran must immediately halt all nuclear enrichment and related activities, and do so under international inspection, before any negotiation begins, and any diplomatic solution can only be built upon the permanent termination of all such activities.We must pursue a two-track approach - negotiate in good faith, but prepare tough political and economic sanctions if Iran again torpedoes a legitimate peaceful solution. While I sincerely hope that a successful diplomatic solution can be found, I urge the Senate to follow the House quickly and approve the Iran Freedom Support Act. The President should quickly sign this legislation and impose tough sanctions if these talks fail.  

 

I fully agree with Secretary of State Rice who expressed today that the Iranian people deserve a future that embraces human rights, freedom, stability, and prosperity. Indeed, we have hoped for decades that Iran's leadership would choose a course to make this possible.

However, time after time, the regime in Tehran has defied the world's demands that it abandon it nuclear ambitions, even heralding its successful production of enriched uranium only a few months ago.

Read more...

In 1946, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights was created to monitor and prevent the abuse of human rights. It failed miserably. The Commission lost its credibility as an instrument for the promotion and protection of human rights. The Commission instead allowed repressive regimes, like Cuba, Sudan, Libya, Belarus, China, and Zimbabwe, to shield themselves from criticism for their own human rights violations.

On March 15, 2006, the Commission was replaced with a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). But while making superficial structural changes, there has been no reform. Indeed, the new elected membership includes nine countries that the democracy watchdog Freedom House designates as not free include China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, and Azerbaijan.


The U.S. should not support the UNHRC until it upholds the ideals of the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and its membership is made up of free and democratic nations.

The amnesty plan the Senate passed will ultimately stall and with it delay any measures to secure our borders.The political reality is that there are great differences of opinion on how to handle illegal immigration, but there is general consensus on securing the border. That's why I've said we should secure the border first, and then we can debate how to deal with immigration reform.

Read more...

We must take every possible step in an attempt to meet our energy needs through all available sources within in our country. If we don't go after our domestic sources of energy, we will continue to be at the mercy of world supply and demand and uncertain international political situations. We can sit back and watch gas prices rise and rise, or we can do something.

The Dubai ports deal demonstrated to the nation that the current system to vet foreign acquisitions of businesses in the U.S. does not do enough to automatically safeguard our national security. The fact that commercial operations at some of our busiest ports were acquired by a foreign government without Congress knowing and without the administration raising any red flags was astonishing.

This legislation, HR 5337 which was introduced by Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), would strengthen the security safeguards in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States review process, including implementation of a mandatory 45-day review for all deals that include a foreign government. It is also important to note that this bipartisan bill balances the need to ensure that the CFIUS process properly considers national security concerns against the need to encourage beneficial foreign investment. It is based in large part on recommendations of the GAO issued before the Dubai Ports World debacle and has broad support.  

 

The Australian Wheat Board’s kickbacks lined the pockets of Saddam Hussein and continued after the fall of his government. That money should have gone to feed hungry Iraqis through the U.N. Oil for Food Program. We need to find out who benefited from these kickbacks and whether there’s a way to recover the funds and return them to the Iraqi people.America’s wheat farmers deserve to know why their questions about AWB were not investigated by the Bush Administration. Our wheat farmers lost out to AWB on opportunities to compete for Iraqi wheat sales because their concerns were ignored. It’s the administration’s responsibility to ensure U.S. farmers can compete internationally. In this instance, the administration appears to have sided with AWB rather than American farmers.