Discussion · Senate
Christopher Murphy Democrat
“We should pass this resolution to end the war with Iran. The war has raised gas prices, used up half of our long-range stealth missiles, and caused chaos across the Middle East. President Trump has not achieved any of his war goals. Iran's military is still strong, its leaders are more extreme, and its nuclear program is not stopped. We need to vote to end this war.”
“Mr. President, in a few moments, we are going to vote on a resolution to end the President’s illegal, disastrous war with Iran. We should pass this resolution. This is day 146 of a war that has no achievable objectives and no ending, a war that has ruined American families as gas prices are back over $4 a gallon, unaffordable for many working-class Americans. We have sky-high diesel and fertilizer prices. We have seen record numbers of farms going into bankruptcy. This is a war that has made Iran stronger, a war that has depleted American munitions so dangerously that we are now exposed, without the munitions and interceptors necessary if there was an actual threat posed to the United States elsewhere around the world. This war has been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. There is a reason why no American President--Republican or Democrat--prior to Donald Trump began a preemptive war with Iran, because everyone with even scant knowledge of the Middle East knew that a war with Iran was not winnable, knew that it would set off a series of other conflicts in the region that would result in chaos. And that is what we have today--chaos--even worse, planned chaos, foreseeable chaos. Every day, as we speak, Iran strikes its neighbors--Israel, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar. Every day, Iran strikes U.S. forces and our bases in the region. They have done billions of dollars’ worth of damage to our forces and to our partners’ forces. Our war against Iran has set off other wars. Israel has invaded Lebanon. In that country, 4,300 people have been killed, 12,000 have been wounded, and 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced from their homes. Let me say this again: The war with Iran has set off another war in which 4,300 people have been killed and 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes. And this week, a new conflict is breaking out between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Iran did not control the strait before the war, but they now effectively control it. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, connecting the Red Sea to global waterways, now appears also closed, and the Houthis--again, another Iranian ally-- have started to attack ships there. There are 17 Americans who have died. There are hundreds of others who have been wounded. Almost 2,000 Iranian civilians have died, including 250 children. The United States has depleted our munitions and interceptor stores to dangerous levels. Over decades, we carefully, methodically built up a stockpile of long-range stealth missiles--mostly in preparation for a possible future conflict with China. Do you know what percentage of that stockpile has been fired at Iran in 146 days? Not 10 percent, not 30 percent--50 percent. We have fired half of our entire stockpile of long-range stealth missiles in 4 months. And the situation is even worse for our allies and partners in the region. Reports suggest that the UAE and Kuwait may have burned through 75 percent of their Patriot missiles, just over the last 146 days. This all sounds like a disaster--correct?--like an unmitigated five- alarm disaster. But the administration defends this reality. They, frankly, can’t object to the facts that I just laid out. They simply say that this is the cost of a just war. Lives lost, regional chaos, high prices, low stockpiles, taxpayers footing the bill--it is just all worth it, because the Trump administration says: We are achieving our goals, and the goals are worth the price. And here is the most important thing to understand, as we approach this vote in a few moments: It is not worth it. Why? Because Trump has not achieved a single war goal, and Trump has no path to achieve any single war goal. All of the costs, all of the chaos, all of the death that I just described are going to be for nothing because not a single one of these goals is going to be achieved. Now, I will admit the goals have shifted over time, and so on this chart I am simplifying the set of goals. But the first goal has been articulated many times, in different forms, by the administration: regime change. In Trump’s video announcing the beginning of the war, he says: There is also extensive reporting on the plan, led by the Israelis but supported by the United States, to replace the old regime with leaders friendly to the United States and Israel. But here is the reality. Yes, this war has taken out the previous leadership, but what has happened is that the old regime has simply been swapped for a new generation of revolution-era ideologues that are younger, that are more emboldened, and that are less compromising. The new Ayatollah is well known to be a prominent hardliner. He has surrounded himself with other hardliners--leaders of the Quds Force and those with a history of brutal repression of dissidents inside Iran. And they feel emboldened because they have survived this war. They have emerged controlling the country. They have taken America’s best shot, and they are still in charge. The President, at one point, tried to claim that this goal had been effectuated--that because the old Ayatollah is dead and there is a new Ayatollah, by definition, they had succeeded in regime change. All we got is a younger set of leaders who are more confident they can beat the United States and are going to emerge from this conflict more powerful in the region. The second war goal: destroying Iran’s military capabilities. Now, the administration, basically, as soon as the war began, claimed victory here on day 14 of this conflict. Nearly 5 months ago, the Secretary of Defense said that Iran’s military had been ``destroyed’’ and ``made combat ineffective.’’ And 26 days into the conflict, Vice President Vance declared: But with our own eyes, every single day, we can see that that is a lie, as missiles are being fired at our troops and our partners in the region, as wars break out anew each week. According to public reporting in the New York Times and the Washington Post, U.S. intelligence suggests that Iran has retained as much as 70 percent of its prewar missile stock and 70 percent of its mobile missile launchers. So $100 billion spent and 140 days of war, and we have dented their missile capacity. Along the Strait of Hormuz, where the missiles probably matter the most, a new U.S. intelligence estimate--again, this is open-source reporting--says that, of the 33 sites, only 3 sites are fully destroyed or inaccessible. Thirty missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz are still operational. Military intelligence Agencies have also reported that Iran has regained access to 90 percent of the underground missile storage that we have hit. Iran still has their missiles. They still have their drones. They are rebuilding capacity. We have utterly failed at destroying Iran’s military capabilities, and there is no path to success in this war aim. Finally, the third goal: Eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that they can never acquire a nuclear weapon. This is, of course, a goal that has been shared by Republicans and Democrats, and, as Trump has said, this is the only thing that matters. Secretary Hegseth reiterated several times at the hearing yesterday that the primary objective of the war is now to make sure that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon. But let’s just be clear about the facts. According to the IAEA, Iran still has a stockpile of about 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium. That stockpile still exists in the country. Reports suggest that they have moved their highly advanced centrifuges to a place called Pickaxe Mountain and buried them so deep that no airstrike can impact them. Most importantly, because Donald Trump pulled out of the previous nuclear agreement which had frozen Iran’s nuclear research program, Iran has gained the knowledge to enrich uranium up to 60 percent, which everybody knows is effectively weapons-grade. And there is no military strike that can erase that fact. This is a reality that Donald Trump created. Now, Trump’s theory is that this military campaign is going to push Iran to the negotiating table and that the result will be a deal--a nuclear deal--that is better than the one that Iran signed. But this is fantasy. There is no world in which Iran, after this war, agrees to more than they agreed to in the JCPOA. And you just can’t avoid the facts here. The primary reason is that we will have less leverage in these negotiations than the Obama administration had. Why is that? One, this regime is harder line, less willing to negotiate and compromise than the administration Obama was negotiating with. Second, there is no fear of U.S. airstrikes. That was always a sword of Damocles hovering over the negotiations during the Obama administration. Now Iran knows that they can survive, the regime can survive America’s best shot. Our military leverage is just much weaker. Our primary leverage that we had during the Obama administration--the removal of oil sanctions--will not be available to us in these negotiations because we have already demonstrated that those sanctions will be released just to get Iran to reopen the strait. So we won’t have the military leverage. We won’t have the oil sanctions leverage. We will be dealing with a regime that is harder line than the one we were dealing with prior. There is no world in which, at the end of this conflict, we are getting a better nuclear agreement than the one that Trump left. Billions of dollars wasted; 18 Americans dead; thousands of civilians and children in the Middle East killed; our military stockpile is dangerously depleted; new wars in the region breaking out by the week; the Strait of Hormuz and possibly the Red Sea now closed, controlled by our enemies; gas prices skyrocketing; the global economy melting down-- all of this, for what? Nothing. Not a single war objective achieved. Not a viable path to achieve any of them in the coming months. This war was a mistake from the start. Everyone except for Donald Trump knew it would be a disaster. It is a disaster, and we have a chance today to vote to end it. I yield the floor.”
Mr. President, in a few moments, we are going to vote on a resolution to end the President’s illegal, disastrous war with Iran. We should pass this resolution. This is day 146 of a war that has no achievable objectives and no ending, a war that has ruined American families as gas prices are back over $4 a gallon, unaffordable for many working-class Americans. We have sky-high diesel and fertilizer prices. We have seen record numbers of farms going into bankruptcy. This is a war that has made Iran stronger, a war that has depleted American munitions so dangerously that we are now exposed, without the munitions and interceptors necessary if there was an actual threat posed to the United States elsewhere around the world. This war has been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. There is a reason why no American President--Republican or Democrat--prior to Donald Trump began a preemptive war with Iran, because everyone with even scant knowledge of the Middle East knew that a war with Iran was not winnable, knew that it would set off a series of other conflicts in the region that would result in chaos. And that is what we have today--chaos--even worse, planned chaos, foreseeable chaos. Every day, as we speak, Iran strikes its neighbors--Israel, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar. Every day, Iran strikes U.S. forces and our bases in the region. They have done billions of dollars’ worth of damage to our forces and to our partners’ forces. Our war against Iran has set off other wars. Israel has invaded Lebanon. In that country, 4,300 people have been killed, 12,000 have been wounded, and 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced from their homes. Let me say this again: The war with Iran has set off another war in which 4,300 people have been killed and 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes. And this week, a new conflict is breaking out between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Iran did not control the strait before the war, but they now effectively control it. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, connecting the Red Sea to global waterways, now appears also closed, and the Houthis--again, another Iranian ally-- have started to attack ships there. There are 17 Americans who have died. There are hundreds of others who have been wounded. Almost 2,000 Iranian civilians have died, including 250 children. The United States has depleted our munitions and interceptor stores to dangerous levels. Over decades, we carefully, methodically built up a stockpile of long-range stealth missiles--mostly in preparation for a possible future conflict with China. Do you know what percentage of that stockpile has been fired at Iran in 146 days? Not 10 percent, not 30 percent--50 percent. We have fired half of our entire stockpile of long-range stealth missiles in 4 months. And the situation is even worse for our allies and partners in the region. Reports suggest that the UAE and Kuwait may have burned through 75 percent of their Patriot missiles, just over the last 146 days. This all sounds like a disaster--correct?--like an unmitigated five- alarm disaster. But the administration defends this reality. They, frankly, can’t object to the facts that I just laid out. They simply say that this is the cost of a just war. Lives lost, regional chaos, high prices, low stockpiles, taxpayers footing the bill--it is just all worth it, because the Trump administration says: We are achieving our goals, and the goals are worth the price. And here is the most important thing to understand, as we approach this vote in a few moments: It is not worth it. Why? Because Trump has not achieved a single war goal, and Trump has no path to achieve any single war goal. All of the costs, all of the chaos, all of the death that I just described are going to be for nothing because not a single one of these goals is going to be achieved. Now, I will admit the goals have shifted over time, and so on this chart I am simplifying the set of goals. But the first goal has been articulated many times, in different forms, by the administration: regime change. In Trump’s video announcing the beginning of the war, he says: There is also extensive reporting on the plan, led by the Israelis but supported by the United States, to replace the old regime with leaders friendly to the United States and Israel. But here is the reality. Yes, this war has taken out the previous leadership, but what has happened is that the old regime has simply been swapped for a new generation of revolution-era ideologues that are younger, that are more emboldened, and that are less compromising. The new Ayatollah is well known to be a prominent hardliner. He has surrounded himself with other hardliners--leaders of the Quds Force and those with a history of brutal repression of dissidents inside Iran. And they feel emboldened because they have survived this war. They have emerged controlling the country. They have taken America’s best shot, and they are still in charge. The President, at one point, tried to claim that this goal had been effectuated--that because the old Ayatollah is dead and there is a new Ayatollah, by definition, they had succeeded in regime change. All we got is a younger set of leaders who are more confident they can beat the United States and are going to emerge from this conflict more powerful in the region. The second war goal: destroying Iran’s military capabilities. Now, the administration, basically, as soon as the war began, claimed victory here on day 14 of this conflict. Nearly 5 months ago, the Secretary of Defense said that Iran’s military had been ``destroyed’’ and ``made combat ineffective.’’ And 26 days into the conflict, Vice President Vance declared: But with our own eyes, every single day, we can see that that is a lie, as missiles are being fired at our troops and our partners in the region, as wars break out anew each week. According to public reporting in the New York Times and the Washington Post, U.S. intelligence suggests that Iran has retained as much as 70 percent of its prewar missile stock and 70 percent of its mobile missile launchers. So $100 billion spent and 140 days of war, and we have dented their missile capacity. Along the Strait of Hormuz, where the missiles probably matter the most, a new U.S. intelligence estimate--again, this is open-source reporting--says that, of the 33 sites, only 3 sites are fully destroyed or inaccessible. Thirty missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz are still operational. Military intelligence Agencies have also reported that Iran has regained access to 90 percent of the underground missile storage that we have hit. Iran still has their missiles. They still have their drones. They are rebuilding capacity. We have utterly failed at destroying Iran’s military capabilities, and there is no path to success in this war aim. Finally, the third goal: Eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that they can never acquire a nuclear weapon. This is, of course, a goal that has been shared by Republicans and Democrats, and, as Trump has said, this is the only thing that matters. Secretary Hegseth reiterated several times at the hearing yesterday that the primary objective of the war is now to make sure that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon. But let’s just be clear about the facts. According to the IAEA, Iran still has a stockpile of about 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium. That stockpile still exists in the country. Reports suggest that they have moved their highly advanced centrifuges to a place called Pickaxe Mountain and buried them so deep that no airstrike can impact them. Most importantly, because Donald Trump pulled out of the previous nuclear agreement which had frozen Iran’s nuclear research program, Iran has gained the knowledge to enrich uranium up to 60 percent, which everybody knows is effectively weapons-grade. And there is no military strike that can erase that fact. This is a reality that Donald Trump created. Now, Trump’s theory is that this military campaign is going to push Iran to the negotiating table and that the result will be a deal--a nuclear deal--that is better than the one that Iran signed. But this is fantasy. There is no world in which Iran, after this war, agrees to more than they agreed to in the JCPOA. And you just can’t avoid the facts here. The primary reason is that we will have less leverage in these negotiations than the Obama administration had. Why is that? One, this regime is harder line, less willing to negotiate and compromise than the administration Obama was negotiating with. Second, there is no fear of U.S. airstrikes. That was always a sword of Damocles hovering over the negotiations during the Obama administration. Now Iran knows that they can survive, the regime can survive America’s best shot. Our military leverage is just much weaker. Our primary leverage that we had during the Obama administration--the removal of oil sanctions--will not be available to us in these negotiations because we have already demonstrated that those sanctions will be released just to get Iran to reopen the strait. So we won’t have the military leverage. We won’t have the oil sanctions leverage. We will be dealing with a regime that is harder line than the one we were dealing with prior. There is no world in which, at the end of this conflict, we are getting a better nuclear agreement than the one that Trump left. Billions of dollars wasted; 18 Americans dead; thousands of civilians and children in the Middle East killed; our military stockpile is dangerously depleted; new wars in the region breaking out by the week; the Strait of Hormuz and possibly the Red Sea now closed, controlled by our enemies; gas prices skyrocketing; the global economy melting down-- all of this, for what? Nothing. Not a single war objective achieved. Not a viable path to achieve any of them in the coming months. This war was a mistake from the start. Everyone except for Donald Trump knew it would be a disaster. It is a disaster, and we have a chance today to vote to end it. I yield the floor.