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.
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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.