Jeanne Shaheen Presses State Department Nom On Rumors Of 'Assassinating' Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) spoke about the Trump administration's policy towards post-Assadist Syria.

Transcript

00:00Well thank you Mr. Chairman and Mr. Rayburn just to follow up on Chairman

00:08Rish's comments if confirmed will you commit to swiftly moving to ensuring

00:13that the sanctions are lifted in a positive way in Syria? Senator thank you

00:19for that that question if I'm confirmed I will carry out the president secretary

00:24Rubio's instructions to implement the policy guidance that the president has

00:28laid out yes. I appreciate that and I have been concerned by some rumors that I

00:35have heard in some circles that have been repeated to me by people from the

00:41Middle East that they have heard in foreign policy circles of the

00:46administration that one option that's been suggested is assassinating the new

00:52leader of the Syrian government Mr. Ahmed al-Sharah. Can you just talk about what

00:58the implications of that kind of action would mean for Syria and for the region?

01:04Senator I'm not familiar I'm not familiar with the efforts like like that but I

01:11think that's that's clearly not in line with the president's intention that he

01:17stated or his description of Mr. Shara in the past couple of days. I agree he his

01:24meeting sounded like it was very positive and that that's good news. Well again I

01:30think one of the things that was pointed out to us by King Abdullah was that a

01:34change in leadership of that kind would create an all-out civil war in Syria that

01:40would not be good to to take advantage of the opportunity that we currently have

01:46to move that country forward. I was surprised that when you were talking about

01:52opportunities that we have that you didn't mention Lebanon in your opening

01:56statement because I would argue that we also have that kind of opportunity in

02:01Syria we have in Lebanon right now as well with the new leadership there and one

02:07of the important challenges there is to ensure that the Lebanese Armed Forces can

02:12continue to do the work that they need to do to help clear Hezbollah out of

02:19southern Lebanon and to disarm many of the arm and armaments that have been

02:25brought into the country so can you talk about how I've confirmed you would look

02:31at supporting the LAF and helping to ensure that Lebanon continues to move

02:36forward. Senator thank you for raising that actually in my statement I did name

02:42Lebanon as an area where there's a golden opportunity to. Oh good I'm sorry I missed it.

02:45To build on on the Iranian regime and Hezbollah's being on the back foot and

02:52having suffered some strategic setbacks in order to make sure that those can be a

02:57region that's so that for example what I stated was Syria and Lebanon can no

03:03longer be used by the Iranian regime as a platform to try to destabilize the

03:07neighboring region. I think the Lebanon the new Lebanese government has a golden

03:11opportunity to take advantage of that and and I know that the administration is

03:19working very closely with the Lebanese authorities to help them to help empower

03:24them to be able to take advantage of that opportunity. The Lebanese Armed Forces is

03:30part of that as part of the plan for for following up on the ceasefire in southern

03:37Lebanon in order to try to stabilize the Lebanon-Israel border in a way that hasn't

03:42been true for more than 40 years. So I think it is a very it's very good

03:46opportunity. It's on the Lebanese authorities now the Lebanon the new

03:50Lebanese government under President Allen and the Lebanese army they need to

03:54seize the opportunity. I think in the past they've had some capacity problems

03:59there's also been a problem political will it seems like things are changing in

04:03Beirut now so there's an opportunity for them to to move forward in a way that I

04:07think hasn't been possible before. And so again and if confirmed for your new role

04:12how can you support that effort? If I'm confirmed Senator I think we use our

04:19our diplomacy we use our my colleague here if he's confirmed it would work

04:25together to try to make sure that Lebanese authorities have what they need to

04:29have in order to do their part of enforcing the ceasefire stabilizing the

04:34southern border and ensuring that Hezbollah or any other malign group can't

04:39use that Lebanese territory against Israel or any of their neighbors. Thank you

04:44Mr. Pratt we talked a little bit about and you in your opening statement talked

04:48about foreign military sales and the importance of those and how to to better

04:54put in place a process that works to support our allies. One of the other

05:01areas that has been a real challenge for our allies and for our own defense

05:06industrial base has been the International Traffic and Arms Regulation or ITAR. So

05:13how how can you would you work in your new position if confirmed to ensure that we

05:19can make that process work both for American industry but also to continue to

05:26safeguard sensitive U.S. technology? Yes ma'am thank you senator for that

05:30question. Indeed a fun fact about when the president of the United States

05:36nominates you to be assistant secretary for political military affairs I would

05:41estimate a good seventy percent of all human interaction thereafter involves

05:45complaints about ITAR. So very familiar ma'am. That sounds right. In fact literally just last

05:55week Deputy Secretary Landau summoned me to his office at State Department and I

06:01won't reveal the contents of the discussion but I assure you I have a very

06:07clear mandate to deal with ITAR and as you point out it's very important to keep

06:14our most exquisite technology out of the hands of our enemies but there is a lot

06:20of work to be done to make it more efficient and more effective and I look

06:24forward to working with this committee to make that happen. Well thank you I'm

06:27out of time but I look forward to hearing more about what you think we

06:31should be doing there. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mr. Pratt you

06:35underlined what important this issue is you know myself and Senator Shaheen and our

06:40counterparts on the other side are able to stop military sales we we'd whine a

06:45little bit about that but it's the other side trying to move it along and get

06:49stuff in the hands of people faster. I think part of it is it's just the they

06:54the other side trying to move it along and get it along and get it along and get it along and get it along.

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