At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) spoke about Iran under the Biden administration.
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00:00Has it been 75 days or is it 72? I wouldn't call this late in all due respect, but let's contrast
00:07it with the previous four years. What was the economic position of Iran on the day that President
00:13Trump left office? They were a lot weaker than they are today. Were they shipping a couple hundred
00:21thousand barrels a day, not a million and a half barrels a day? That's correct. So during the four
00:27years of the Biden administration, perhaps in plain sight while other things were being discussed,
00:32JCPOA, Iran's nuclear and so on, they went up by more than a million barrels a day times $75,
00:42right? And most of it was sold to China, correct? So the last administration allowed China to enrich
00:50Iran. During those four years, is it accurate to say that that money, a great deal of it ended up
00:57in the hands of Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah? That's correct. Okay. So I want to, I want to go
01:05to the go forward. And I know my colleague has left, but 70, 72 days is the beginning of an
01:13administration. Over the next three years, if maximum pressure includes taking ghost ships off
01:24the high seas, do you believe it's possible to reverse that million or a million two of additional
01:30oil and bring Iran economically back to where they were four years ago? I do, but I don't think
01:37taking the ghost fleet off alone will do that. I'm saying I'm including that because most of that
01:43million barrels plus is shipped through ghost ships, correct? Yes. Okay. So as part of a maximum
01:50effort, recognizing that Israel may strike in its own best interest between now and the end of October
01:57when nuclear legitimacy, according to the last administration, goes forward. As part of a package,
02:08economic sanctions, as we know, are not working because people are cheating on them.
02:13The number one cheater is China. As the president uses his pressure with China and tariffs,
02:22should he include reducing the purchases of condescending oil from China and Russia as part
02:29of a deal with China? Would that be helpful? Additionally, the same thing goes for our European
02:36allies who either directly or indirectly buy that sanctioned oil. Absolutely. I think that's a great
02:42place to start and hopefully would have an impact. Now, just before I spoke, we heard about the so-called
02:49reluctance of the vice president to strike the Houthis. In fact, isn't that one of the more major
02:56proactive strikes that's occurred in the last several years? Correct. And that particular strike,
03:02as I understand it, was an offensive strike to take out capability, not simply a retaliatory for a place
03:09from which they were fired. I'm going to defer to Mr. Rule on that, but he's got more expertise in that
03:16area. They are the most significant strikes we've conducted against the Houthis. They're not only
03:20taking out, degrading the Houthi weapons capability, but taking out Houthi leadership. And they're starting
03:28to impact on the Houthi leadership decision-making structure itself. So Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis,
03:37the three most powerful arms of Iran, in addition to the oil that gives them money. If those activities
03:48continue at the pace they've been going over the last, some of it more than 75 days because of Israel's
03:56efforts with Hamas and Hezbollah, but if those three tentacles of Iran are taken out over the next
04:05three years, if the clandestine oil is reduced to, let's just say, about where it was four years earlier,
04:15do you believe we can avoid all-out war with Iran but bring Iran back to a situation in which they
04:22must deal or be unable to function because of economic disaster?
04:33If we can also ensure that the Quds Force does not have a logistics line into the region,
04:38we could avoid a war based on activities such as Hamas and Houthi actions in the Red Sea.
04:44There will be some who will say that Iran could be encouraged to build a nuclear weapon if it thinks
04:50it can get away with it and we won't attack. So the president would also have to say,
04:54if we see you building a nuclear weapon, we're going to have to use military action.
04:58And I'll just close with one statement. Many people have talked about the nuclear capability,
05:04but is it fair to say that the ability to build a nuke only allows you to blow yourself up
05:10if you don't have the ability to launch it? And that isn't that part of the administration's
05:15responsibility along with allies is to make sure that they do not have the ability to launch a
05:20nuclear weapon. The gentleman's time's up and the witnesses may respond in writing if you choose to.