[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 8, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S66-S68]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  Iran

  Mr. President, now I would like to speak on the attacks from Iran.
  ``All is well.'' That is what Donald Trump said just hours after a 
dozen missiles were fired at two U.S. military bases last night. That 
is what he said as thousands of troops are readying to deploy to the 
Middle East, to a hotbed of anger, where wearing an American flag on 
your shoulder gets more dangerous by the day. That is what he said as 
his own Nation careens toward a reckless and unauthorized war of his 
own making, born out of his illiteracy in matters ranging from foreign 
policy to common sense.
  Donald Trump never deigned to put on the uniform of this great 
Nation, using his father's money to buy his way out of military service 
when his country needed him in Vietnam.
  Let me make something clear to Donald Trump. All is certainly not 
well when war is on the horizon, just because you want to look like the 
toughest kid on the playground. I am incredibly thankful that no 
Americans were killed last night in Iran's rebuttal attack, but some 
missed missiles should be no cause for celebration for the President. 
Just because there weren't fatalities yesterday doesn't mean there will 
not be any tragedies tomorrow.
  We got into this situation because of Trump's glibness, because he 
liked the feeling of thumping his chest and the roar it got from FOX 
News, because he was so enamored by maximum pressure that he laughed at 
the idea of even minimum diplomacy. Now America is less safe as a 
result. So, no, Mr. President, all is certainly not well.
  Sadly, Trump's glibness is shocking but not surprising. Last weekend, 
he was at his golf course in Florida, while more and more American 
troops were packing their rucks and getting ready to deploy 7,000 miles 
east. He was tweeting from Mar-a-Lago while the Iraqi Parliament was 
voting to expel U.S. servicemembers from their nation. He was rubbing 
shoulders with fellow millionaires from the comfort of his ritzy 
country club while the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS was announcing 
that we no longer have the resources to fight ISIS in Iraq and that, 
instead, we have to hunker down and focus on protecting our troops from 
the acts of revenge that Iran has promised are on the way.
  A potential global conflict is veering closer by the hour, and it is 
because of Donald Trump. It is because of his impetuousness and his 
ignorance. It is because, once again, he has been manipulated by a 
hostile regime into decisions that further their goals while 
endangering the security of the Nation

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Trump is actually supposed to be leading.
  When I deployed to Iraq in 2004, I saw firsthand just how eager the 
country was to shake off Iran's influence. I watched as the anti-Iran 
protests continued long after I flew my last mission, as young Iraqis 
spoke out against Iran while I was back in Baghdad just this past 
spring, as protests roiled as recently as last month, when tens of 
thousands of Iraqis flooded the streets, raising voices and picket 
signs, demanding that their government crawl out from under Tehran's 
thumb.
  Now, after Donald Trump decided to kill Major General Qasem Soleimani 
on sovereign Baghdad soil, those same streets are now filled with 
protesters once more. Yet, this time, they are marching in solidarity 
with the enemy that hundreds of Iraqis died marching against just a few 
short weeks ago.
  With one choice, Donald Trump squandered the opportunity that existed 
to push against Iranian influence and for greater democracy and 
stability in the Middle East. In one fell swoop, he somehow managed to 
villainize the United States and victimize Iran, our enemy, isolating 
us from a long-term partner in Iraq and amping up Iran's influence in a 
country that everyone knows is vital to our security interests 
throughout the Middle East.
  Look, Iran didn't want Trump to kill Soleimani, but they were hungry 
for all that has happened as a result. They were starving to go on the 
offensive, desperate to change the narrative, to swing public opinion 
and solidify their power in Iraq, to have a new excuse to attack anyone 
with an American flag on their shoulder and to shrug off the restraints 
of the nuclear deal.
  Like a pawn in a game of chess he didn't even seem to know he was 
playing, Trump was baited into handing them all of that. Like a child 
who is blind to consequences, ignorant of his own ignorance, he has 
given Iran everything they could have asked for in the end, making it 
far more likely that tomorrow--or next week or next month--more 
Americans will be sent into another one of the forever wars he has 
bragged that he, and he alone, would be able to end.
  We used to have the Monroe Doctrine and the Truman doctrine. Now we 
have the Trump doctrine, in which the leader of the free world, the 
Commander in Chief of the greatest fighting force ever assembled, gets 
manipulated again and again by dictators of hostile regimes. We have 
already seen it too many times since he was sworn into office. We have 
seen it played out on the streets of Venezuela and the deserts of 
northeast Syria. We have seen him get manipulated by tyrants in 
Pyongyang and Riyadh, subjugated by despots in Moscow and Ankara, as 
our allies laughed--literally laughed--at him behind his back.
  All these dictators and hostile regimes know. They have realized the 
same thing: The President of the United States is as easy to control as 
a toddler. Sweet-talk him or thump your chest and issue a few 
schoolyard threats and you have got him. He will fall for it every 
time, doing your bidding as if it is his own. I wish this weren't true, 
but my diaper-wearing, 20-month-old daughter has better impulse control 
than this President. Kids in school cafeterias know not to look up when 
someone tells them that ``gullible'' is written on the ceiling, but I 
am pretty sure Donald Trump, a man who once stared directly into a 
solar eclipse, will be caught stealing a glance, just to be sure.
  The thing is, Trump told us who he was long before he stepped into 
the Oval Office, and too many chose not to believe him. As a so-called 
businessman, he left a string of bankruptcies wherever he went, 
destroying both his own companies and the small businesses unlucky 
enough to be caught in his wake.
  Now, though, as Commander in Chief, his incompetence has cost us our 
standing in the world, endangered our national security, and placed an 
even bigger target on our deployed troops. Now, the currency that he is 
spending isn't just the money that his father left him but the blood of 
the men and women who have sworn an oath to defend this Nation to their 
deaths.
  Sixteen years ago, I was one of the many Americans deployed to Iraq, 
one of the many who was willing to sacrifice everything, after our 
Commander in Chief convinced Congress that our Nation's security 
depended on removing Saddam Hussein and replacing his regime with a 
democracy. A decade and a half later, we have spent trillions of 
dollars to achieve that goal. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens 
have been killed or displaced. Thousands of our bravest have died for 
that goal. Thousands more have been wounded and maimed.

  We did not sacrifice all of that for this President to turn our Iraqi 
partners into adversaries who vote to kick us out of the very democracy 
we helped to build.
  I have friends who have done 8, 9, 10 tours in Iraq, who go each time 
knowing they will probably be back on that same stretch of sand in a 
couple of years, who proudly answer the call and who will continue to 
answer the call, fighting for that same patch of desert over and over 
again because they believe--they believe--us when we tell them that 
will make America safer and more secure. They gain a few feet one tour, 
lose an inch or two the next, watching their buddies lose limbs or 
lives over that same piece of ground time and again.
  Those troops show up ready to do their jobs whenever we ask, no 
matter what. We need to honor that. We need to honor their willingness 
to show up and carry out the mission. Now, especially after the attacks 
last night, we in Congress can honor them by doing our job. We are the 
branch vested with that most solemn duty of declaring war, so we need 
to exert our constitutional control over this out-of-control toddler-
in-chief and vote to prevent him from entangling us in another major 
war without legal authorization from Congress. In this moment, at this 
precipice, we need to be doing whatever we can to break the cycle of 
escalation. We need less chest-thumping and more diplomacy.
  Don't get me wrong--I am glad this general is dead. He was 
responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American servicemembers over 
the last decades. I also want to stop Iranian influence, but this 
decision by this President has not done that.
  If we truly want to honor our heroes in uniform, we wouldn't send 
them into harm's way without a clear-eyed discussion of the mission we 
are asking them to carry out and the consequences for both them and our 
Nation. Then, after we have that discussion, if we still believe war is 
the right path, I will vote yes. But so far, Trump has not even managed 
to come to us to give us his reasons for his actions. Having never 
sacrificed much himself, he doesn't understand our troops' sacrifices. 
Having never really served anything other than his own self-interests, 
he doesn't give a second thought to their service, treating their 
dedication to our Nation with the kind of reckless abandon he did the 
cash he blew through with each of his bankruptcies.
  I don't need to remind anyone that Donald Trump is a five-deferment 
draft dodger. But his ignorance about military service isn't captured 
just by the privilege he showed when he dodged service in Vietnam--no, 
it is also revealed in his brazen embrace of torture, his hostility 
toward good order and discipline, and his stated desire to commit war 
crimes.
  I implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to recognize 
our Commander in Chief for who he really is. Donald Trump will never 
willingly cut the puppet strings that the likes of Vladimir Putin and 
Kim Jong Un are using to make him dance. We need a strong majority in 
the Senate to force such an action, to discuss the AUMF. Until then, 
small-time dictators will continue to have access to the world's most 
powerful marionette, and we will all suffer the consequences.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, let me say that I, along with I think most 
Americans, am grateful that in the rocket attacks launched last night 
by Iran, there were no American casualties. I think I, like most of our 
colleagues here in the Senate, I hope, will have an opportunity later 
today to hear from the administration about the state of events there 
and what the plans are going forward.
  We all know it is a dangerous part of the world. It has been that way 
for decades. The Iranian influence there is a

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malign influence that has put at risk and in jeopardy not only American 
lives but lives of countless people throughout that region.
  Mr. Soleimani, who was removed in the last few days, of course, was 
responsible for hundreds of American deaths. His loss is something that 
I think people not only in this country but certainly people in that 
region of the world benefit from because he will no longer be able to 
conduct and operate and commit terrorist attacks and bring about death 
to people all over that region of the world.