{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=8CB982EA-5C67-4457-8EA0-EC6B962091A5", "McConnell Remarks On Fall Of Assad Regime In Syria", "2024-12-09", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "\u2018It\u2019s quite clear that the recent lightning success of Syrian rebel groups is due in part to the distraction of the Assad regime\u2019s essential patrons. For more than a decade, assistance from Russia and Iran has shored up the twin pillars of Assad\u2019s rule: repression and fear. But today, Russian attention and resources are tied up in protracted war of aggression in Ukraine. And Iran is busy propping up a network of terrorist proxies that Israel has dealt savage blows.\u2019\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Syria:\n\n\u201cIn a matter of weeks, President Biden will hand off his authority to a new Commander in Chief, and his administration will submit its stewardship of U.S. foreign and national security policy to the judgment of posterity.\n\n\u201cAlready, the contours of history are coming into focus: on this Administration\u2019s watch, and frequently at its tacit invitation, the gravest threats to America, our allies, and our global interests have grown and aligned more closely.\n\n\u201cSenior Administration officials insist that the exact opposite is true, and that they\u2019re preparing to hand off a world that is safer and more stable than they found it.\n\n\u201cThis sort of spin isn\u2019t surprising\u2026 It\u2019s just profoundly untrue.\n\n\u201cAnd nowhere is the Administration\u2019s revisionist gaslighting more blatant or bizarre than in its account of events in the Middle East.\n\n\u201cYesterday\u2019s collapse of the Assad regime in Syria was a stunning close to half a century of authoritarian rule and thirteen years of senseless slaughter, torture, and innocent suffering.\n\n\u201cBashar Assad is an agent of Iran\u2026 An ally of Russia\u2026 And a butcher whose hands are stained with so much innocent blood that the death toll defies precise counting.\n\n\u201cThe destination of this butcher\u2019s flight from Damascus over the weekend is telling. Fellow dictators still find a warm welcome in Putin\u2019s Moscow. And, I might add, so do unrepentant traitors like Edward Snowden.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s quite clear that the recent lightning success of Syrian rebel groups is due in part to the distraction of the Assad regime\u2019s essential patrons.\n\n\u201cFor more than a decade, assistance from Russia and Iran has shored up the twin pillars of Assad\u2019s rule: repression and fear.\n\n\u201cBut today, Russian attention and resources are tied up in protracted war of aggression in Ukraine. And Iran is busy propping up a network of terrorist proxies that Israel has dealt savage blows.\n\n\u201cIf you ask the Biden Administration, this was all part of the plan. The President, himself, said as much yesterday.\n\n\u201cHe noted that the Assad regime\u2019s strongest backers \u2013 Russia, Iran, and Hizballah \u2013 are weaker today than they were four years ago\u2026 as if to suggest that it was his Administration\u2019s policy that made these events possible.\n\n\u201cBut my colleagues \u2013 and for that matter, America\u2019s allies and partners \u2013 know a lot better than that. We know that to the extent that our adversaries are weaker today than they were when the President took office, it\u2019s in spite of his chronic hesitation and half-measures in the conduct of American foreign policy.\n\n\u201cUkraine has blunted Russian military power in spite of this Administration\u2019s unfounded fear of escalation and repeated withholding of lethal assistance.\n\n\u201cIsrael has put Iran and its proxies on the back foot in spite of the Administration\u2019s repeated attempts to dictate the terms of Israeli military operations \u2013 and its ongoing freeze on transfers of essential precision munitions.\n\n\u201cIf the Assad regime\u2019s brutality was an abiding concern for the President, or if the ongoing plight of the Syrian people factored meaningfully into his Administration\u2019s policy, then his National Security Advisor\u2019s description of the Middle East last fall as \u2018quieter than it has been for decades\u2019 is even more incongruous than the horrors of October 7th already made it.\n\n\u201cIf the President now intends to claim credit for bringing a potential end to Syria\u2019s grinding civil war, it begs the question why, as Vice President, he agreed with President Obama\u2019s decision not to enforce his self-imposed red line on Assad\u2019s use of chemical weapons.\n\n\u201cThe last Democratic administration\u2019s approach to Syria helped Russia displace American influence and helped Iran turn it into a staging ground for its terror proxies\u2019 war on Israel.\n\n\u201cThe current Democratic administration\u2019s scolding and hectoring of the Jewish state has made defending against this war more difficult.\n\n\u201cThe Commander in Chief\u2019s record will speak for itself. History will reflect that, if his Administration wanted to heed the urging of leaders of both parties in Congress and deliver the sort of lethal capabilities and permissions Ukraine needed to defend against Russian aggression at the speed of relevance, it was fully empowered to do so.\n\n\u201cAnd had this President even once expressed a willingness to take a serious, bipartisan approach to the Middle East\u2019s primary agents of chaos in Tehran \u2013 and its proxies and vassals from Yemen to Syria \u2013 it would have found willing partners on this side of the aisle.\n\n\u201cI made this much crystal-clear from the first days of his Administration.\n\n\u201cAt best, the Biden Administration has been an impassive observer. At worst, it restrained America\u2019s friends from defending themselves and hampered the otherwise transformational success of Israel\u2019s operations against the enemies who started this war.\n\n\u201cIn spite of the Administration\u2019s fixation on de-escalation, Israel decimated Hizballah, the crown jewel of Iran\u2019s terror web.\n\n\u201cWhile the Administration obsessed over the illusion of returning to a stable status quo ante, Israel has turned the tables on Iran and its proxies.\n\n\u201cToday, there is no longer such a status quo in Syria.\n\n\u201cAfter years of war stoked by Russia and Iran, the prospects of a beleaguered Syrian people are complicated and uncertain.\n\n\u201cBut the fall of the Assad regime is an opportunity for our partners in the Middle East to chart a new future\u2026\n\n\u201cAnd to press the advantage earned by Israel\u2019s decisive operations and uproot Iran\u2019s remaining influence throughout the region.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:07:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=8CB982EA-5C67-4457-8EA0-EC6B962091A5"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.134591806679964, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}