WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and U.S. Representative Jim Himes (CT-4), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, on Tuesday authored an op-ed in USA Today outlining the dangers of the Trump administration’s Iran escalation policy and how it is moving us closer to war. 

Excerpts from the op-ed are below and can be viewed here 

“Take one look at the chaos in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and it’s hard to imagine why any American leader would be itching to put the United States into another foreign war. But that’s what may be happening right now, as the hawkish advisers to President Donald Trump walk us toward conflict with Iran. Americans need to know the risks of this dangerous game of escalation, and raise their voices against another disastrous Middle Eastern conflict.” the members wrote. 

“We are both frequent critics of President Trump. But the president seems to understand that dropping American troops into foreign quagmires rarely ends well. That’s why presidential whisperers such as national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are taking the small steps that could eventually lead, not by accident, to war with Iran.” 

“Make no mistake: the Iranian regime is a vile one. The two of us have voted for practically every single measure and sanction to punish Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, its development of prohibited weapons and its abhorrent human rights abuses. The ayatollahs of Tehran are in a category with the brutal regimes of Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi. But no matter how much Hussein and Gadhafi deserved to be removed from power, our military actions to take down those regimes ended up creating more misery than they prevented.” 

“Predictably, we are now in a very dangerous place. Iran is threatening to restart some nuclear activity. Iran’s military is on high alert, and in easy shooting distance of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, Syria and Iraq. Tehran’s moderate leaders have been discredited and the country’s ultra-conservative hardliners are ascendant.” the members added. 

“But it is not too late to stop this mistake. Military brinkmanship, designed to provoke or cause an aggressive reaction, can be stopped. We ask that the administration brief Congress on the situation in an open and transparent way and acknowledge that the Constitution grants war-making authority solely to Congress, not the Oval Office. Critically, President Trump must understand that the authorization for the use of military force that Congress passed in 2001 against al-Qaida does not authorize hostilities against Iran, no matter how much Mr. Pompeo would like to link Iran and al-Qaida.” 

Read the full op-ed here. 

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