John Rice Carter: “We are sitting here with a concern that goes back 1,000 years between the Sunnis and the Shiites. That is why people…”

“We are sitting here with a concern that goes back 1,000 years between the Sunnis and the Shiites. That is why people talk about civil war. Now, has anybody read what has been put in the Middle Eastern newspapers about if the Americans pull out, and it blows up in Iraq, the countries that will come to the aid of these two groups? The Iranians have said, we are not going to let Shiites be put down, we will come to their aid. The Saudis have said, we are not going to have genocide for the Sunnis who are the minority party, we will come to the Sunnis' aid. I think Americans know that if you take Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that is the basic oil production region of the entire Middle East who could become involved in a region-wide conflict because of America's early pullout, as recommended by Speaker Pelosi. Then you know how upset folks got about $4-a-gallon gasoline? So what happens when over two-thirds of the world's supply is involved in a civil war or region-wide war in the Middle East if you don't care about doing the right thing? We certainly know people care about having $10-a-gallon gasoline. It's kind of a sad, tragic thing to argue. But let's get realistic about this. If we get stability in Iraq where there is not going to be this threat of genocide, if we can get there by them turning to their government for assistance rather than to militia and terrorists, that is our goal.”