[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 38 (Thursday, February 26, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S699-S701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to discuss a matter that will likely 
be before the body next week, a vote on my bipartisan War Powers 
Resolution to advance the proposition we shouldn't be at war against 
Iran without a vote of Congress.
  I want to take a few minutes today to put this in a context that we 
may all be discussing a little more next week. I believe very strongly 
that a war with Iran today is both unnecessary and dangerous. I want to 
spend a little bit of time talking about why we are at this moment 
right now where President Trump, as recently as Tuesday night at the 
State of the Union, is suggesting that we may possibly need to be at 
war with the Nation of Iran.
  The history of relations between the United States and Iran from the 
beginning of the 20th century to now is very, very tragic. The United 
States and Iran were generally allies from the turn of the 1900s until 
the early 1950s.
  In the middle of World War II, at the Tehran Conference, President 
Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Leader Stalin basically 
devised what would be the boundaries of the current-day Iran. That has 
essentially stuck.
  Iran's prehistory was very complicated, and the United States earned 
really good--significant good will from the Iranian people, from the 
Iranian Government being involved in that discussion.
  We continued being seen as a real ally of Iran. In the early 1950s, 
after having had essentially a dictatorship or monarchy, Iran elected a 
popular Prime Minister. The British Government was worried about that 
government--the Iranian Government's efforts to potentially nationalize 
British oil assets.
  So the British Government tried to talk the United States into a 
military action to topple the Government of Iran. The United States 
refused and convinced Britain not to do it. But later in 1953, the 
United States and Britain together arranged--and these are basic facts, 
no supposition, no opinion here--the United States and Britain joined 
in an effort to foment a coup d'etat that toppled the popularly elected 
Government of Iran and installed Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran over 
the objections of the Iranian people.

  We did that. Britain did that.
  The United States then funded the training of a secret police 
operation in Iran, the SAVAK, that between 1953 and 1979 perpetrated 
gross human rights abuses against the Iranian people.
  This is a history that is not that well known to Americans, but a 
history that is very well known to Iranians.
  That dictatorship and the human rights abuses perpetrated by the 
SAVAK and the Pahlavi regime eventually led to an uprising in Iran in 
1979, and Ayatollah Khomeini, another opposition leader, toppled the 
Pahlavi regime and took control of the Iranian Government.
  Most Americans remember that Iranian protestors stormed the U.S. 
Embassy, took 52 hostages in that Embassy, and held them for 440-plus 
days. It was not as a result of the change in regime, but there was an 
additional fact.
  After the regime changed, the Shah of Iran sought to come to the 
United States for refuge and medical treatment. The State Department 
urged President Carter not to allow it on the grounds they were trying 
to at least maintain some positive future relationship with the Iranian 
Government, but the United States allowed the Shah of Iran to come into 
the United States for medical treatment and care, and that led Iranian 
protestors to attack the American Embassy.
  That was a horrible, unlawful act, and the hostages held for 440 days 
were treated very, very badly. But that then led to a series of back-
and-forths between the United States and Iran.
  The United States, in the 1980s, funded Iraq in an 8-year war against 
Iran that cost hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives. The United 
States supplied military assets to Iraq, to Saddam Hussein, to carry 
out war against Iran. We transferred military assets, including 
chemical weapons, to Saddam Hussein that were used against the Iranian 
population.
  The Iranian population grew to have a deep distrust and fear and even 
hatred of the United States because of this toppling of the Prime 
Minister through U.S. funding of a war against Iran.
  During this Iran-Iraq war, the USS Vincennes, a Navy ship, 
accidentally shot down an Iranian airliner in the region, killing more 
than 250 Iranian civilians. It was an accident, but Iran didn't believe 
it was an accident because they knew that the United States was funding 
Iraq in the war against it, and they viewed that attack on their 
civilian aircraft as something they could not countenance.
  As this was happening, then-Iran-funded Shia militias and terrorist 
groups bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut in the early 1980s as the 
Iran-Iraq war was going on and the United States was funding the war 
against Iran. This back-and-forth started to escalate.
  Later, as you all know, the United States invaded Iran's two 
neighbors--to the west, Iraq; to the east, Afghanistan--and put U.S. 
troops all around Iran in its neighborhood. Iran interpreted those 
invasions as a piece of the toppling of their government and the 
downing of the commercial aircraft and the funding of the Iraq war.
  And so, by the time we get into the 2000s, the depth of enmity 
between the United States and Iran was so intense, the Iranian regime 
chants ``Death to America'' because of this history. And we were 
friends just 60 or 70 years ago. We took a fundamental turn in the 
relationship and opened the path for a potential new chapter in United 
States-Iranian relationships when, during the Obama administration, the 
United States, European allies and China and Russia joined together to 
negotiate with Iran to curb their nuclear program.
  I wrote a piece of legislation, the Iran Nuclear Review Act, that led 
to a

[[Page S700]]

vote on the floor of the Senate on a diplomatic treaty with Iran to 
curb their nuclear program.
  The diplomatic treaty, on the first page, in the first paragraph, in 
the first sentence, had this declaration: Iran reaffirms it will never 
seek to purchase, acquire, or develop a nuclear weapon.
  And the agreement contained other provisions limiting for many years 
Iranian centrifuge production, Iranian enhancement of uranium. It 
compelled significant inspections of the Iranian facilities by the 
International Atomic Energy Agency.
  This deal was a solid deal that, for the first time in 60 years, 
actually had us around the table with a party that had grown to be an 
enemy, together with other allies but also adversaries, like Russia and 
China, to control Iran's nuclear program.
  Many of you know that in President Trump's first term, over the 
objection and advice of his first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and 
his first Secretary of Defense James Mattis, told President Trump: 
Please maintain the JCPOA. Please maintain the agreement that curtails 
Iran's nuclear program and use U.S. sanctions against other Iranian 
behavior; bad actions in the region, human rights violations, 
development of missile programs. The JCPOA allowed the United States 
and other nations to use sanctions to punish Iran for nonnuclear 
activity.
  President Trump's team told him keep the deal in place and use the 
sanctions against some of these other bad behaviors.
  Contrary to the advice of these seasoned foreign policy 
professionals, seasoned defense professionals, Donald Trump tore up the 
JCPOA, and the United States walked away from it, even though our 
allies said it was working, even though China and Russia said it was 
working, and even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said 
that it was working.
  The consequences of abandoning that deal were very obvious at the 
time. If the United States walked away from a deal that was working, so 
would Iran. And so they began again to enhance the enrichment of 
uranium. They began again to produce centrifuges. They ceased allowing 
the intrusive inspections that had been a component of the JCPOA.
  But that wasn't the only effect of President Trump abandoning the 
deal. The parties around the table--our allies who had worked with us 
on it--couldn't believe that the United States was walking away from 
diplomacy. It weakened trust with our allies, and maybe more 
importantly, we had China and Russia--two of our great adversaries 
today--at the table with us to make sure there was not a nuclear Iran. 
And by walking away from the deal, we further poisoned relationships 
with those nations that now pose such challenge to the United States.
  There was an additional consequence. We were in the middle of 
negotiating with North Korea about limits to their nuclear program. As 
soon as they saw the United States abandon a deal that was working, 
they stopped negotiating with us over limits to their nuclear program.
  Why would we do a deal with the United States if the United States 
will back out of it? And there has been no real and meaningful progress 
about the denuclearization of North Korea since the United States 
decided to pull the plug on the JCPOA.
  So here is where we are today. We have an armada around Iran. The 
President has said multiple times--and when he says it, you have to 
believe it because he bombed Iran in the summer--that he is potentially 
on the verge of going to war with Iran.
  What does it mean to have the armada? Let me use a Virginia example. 
The USS Ford carrier is now positioned near Iran to be used in the case 
of an attack.
  Carrier deployments--and the USS Ford deploys out of Virginia, 
thousands of sailors--carrier deployments last about 7 months. The 
carrier was in the Middle East. President Trump ordered the Ford to go 
to the Caribbean--to be a show of force around Venezuela before it 
steamed to the Caribbean. Now the President has ordered the Ford back 
to the Middle East.
  A normal deployment for a carrier is 7 months. This is a deployment 
that is now going to be 11 months long. Our sailors who thought they 
were going to be home seeing their families for Christmas--it is now 
going to take 11 months. It will be the longest deployment of any 
carrier since the Vietnam war, and our sailors are just ready to be 
home.
  The problems with the Ford are almost ones that I don't want to talk 
about on the floor. Many of the toilets on the Ford are inoperable. 
These are the kinds of things that happen during a deployment, and that 
is why you limit a deployment to certain months. You get the ship back 
in port, and you fix it up. The Ford is in tough shape right now and 
needs to come back to port so that the sailors can see their families, 
but also the quality of life and morale on the Ford are in dramatic 
decline.
  So we are at a precipice, with U.S. military troops arrayed around 
Iran.
  I just want to say this: War is unnecessary, and war is dangerous. 
Then I will conclude.
  War is unnecessary.
  The President says we may need to go against Iran to stop their 
nuclear program. We had stopped it through diplomacy. Do we really 
prefer war to diplomacy? And President Trump, in the bombing of Iran in 
the summer--you will remember he said we had obliterated the Iranian 
nuclear program. Well, if that was true 6 months ago, there is no need 
for us to invade Iran now to stop their nuclear ambitions.
  The President said we may need to go to war against Iran to protect 
the protesters. There are protesters against dictatorial governments 
all over the world. Are we going to put our sons and daughters in 
harm's way against those nations to protect protesters?
  I have to say I don't really accept that the President is that 
worried about Iranian protesters. Why not? The President is currently 
deporting people to Iran--Iranians who were in the United States who do 
not have appropriate immigration status, even Iranian Christians, even 
Iranian dissidents who would be subject to persecution if they were 
returned to Iran. President Trump has now sent more than 100 of them 
back to Iran. If he really cared about the rights of Iranians and how 
they would be treated by their government, he wouldn't be doing that.
  Finally, the President has said Iran has ballistic missiles. They do, 
but the U.S. overmatch to Iran's military is so dramatic that any 
effort by the Iranians to use missiles--and there has been no evidence 
that that is their intent against the United States unless we use 
missiles against them--we would obliterate that capacity in an instant 
were they to use it.
  War is unnecessary.
  War is dangerous. War is dangerous for U.S. troops.
  We have put troops all around Iran, all around its borders in 
Lebanon, in Israel, in Syria, in Iraq. We not only have troops, we have 
consulates, for example, in Erbil, in the Kurdish section of northern 
Iraq.
  U.S. assets are everywhere. We can do a great job of protecting an 
awful lot of territory, but it would not be hard for even an 
overmatched nation like Iran, if they are attacked, to reach out and do 
harm to the U.S. troops or U.S. consulates or U.S. civilians. And for 
what?
  This is dangerous to U.S. troops, and I say this as a father of a 
U.S. marine and representing a State that is one of the most military 
States in the Nation.
  War is dangerous to the region.
  When the United States has believed it could change regimes before in 
Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, what has it gotten us? What has it 
gotten us? Has it created a more stable region? Hardly. Hardly.
  To think that we could go in at the barrel of a gun and invade a 
nation and guarantee that lives lost or injured in that would be worth 
it because we would be producing something would be making a prediction 
about the Middle East that has not been borne out by events in the last 
25 years.
  War is dangerous to broader diplomacy.
  We had the nations of the world, both our friends in Europe and China 
and Russia, around the table, and we broke a diplomatic deal, and it 
would suggest that we are preferring war to diplomacy. Why would 
nations want to engage in diplomacy with us if they can't trust the 
United States to stick to our word?

[[Page S701]]

  Finally, war is dangerous to the U.S. economy.
  An invasion of Iran would immediately lead to dramatic increases in 
the price of oil. American citizens, Virginians, are already laboring 
under costs that are too high for energy, for health, for groceries, 
for building supplies. The last thing we need is an unnecessary war 
that will drive energy prices even higher.
  War also risks inciting other dictators.
  If the United States can decide, well, we are going to invade a 
sovereign nation because we want to do it, what is our ability to stand 
and justly criticize Vladimir Putin and Russia for invading Ukraine? 
What argument can we have to China to suggest that they shouldn't incur 
upon and invade Taiwan?
  The United States should uphold a moral standard so that we can look 
others in the eye and say: You should uphold a moral standard.

  We would badly degrade our ability to prevent dictators from invading 
other sovereign nations if we are to get into a war with Iran.
  Look, Iran is not a good guy. Iran is a bad guy. Iran punishes 
protesters. Iran is engaged in all kinds of activity in the region--
funding terrorist groups in Syria, in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas 
in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen. They are doing that. They are doing that 
at the expense of their own people.
  Iran engages in activities far away from the Middle East. They have 
had to remove their Ambassadors from nations as far-flung as Morocco 
and Australia because of activities that are designed in those 
countries to destabilize them. Iran funded a bombing of a Jewish 
cultural center in Argentina a couple decades ago, and they still 
haven't been held to account.
  So they are not a good guy; they are a bad guy. But are they worth 
wasting U.S. lives, U.S. money, U.S. credibility over? Let's use other 
tools, like sanctions, and not use our own kids' lives to deal with 
this threat.
  I will conclude and just say this: My time as Governor from 2006 to 
2010 coincided with the mass deployment of Virginians into wars in Iraq 
and Afghanistan. As the Governor of Virginia, I had an authority over 
members of the Virginia National Guard. The Virginia National Guard 
deployed in the thousands to Iraq and Afghanistan, and I went to the 
deployments, and I went to the homecomings, and I went to the wakes, 
and I went to the funerals.
  Some of these are too emotional for me to describe on the floor, but 
in an odd way, one of the most emotional was the day that I went to the 
Virginia War Memorial to watch a homecoming. U.S. troops coming out of 
Afghanistan had landed in a base in New Jersey, and they had hopped on 
a bus to come back to Virginia to reunite with their families. They 
exited the bus. They got in formation, and their commander announced 
that this National Guard unit was now returned all present and 
accounted for.
  I knew that commander. He had been a Richmond police officer, and he 
was deployed with his unit. I saw in his face that for that entire 6-
month deployment, he labored under the incredible strain of wanting to 
be able to say those words at the end of the deployment--``all present 
and accounted for.''
  I saw him say those words, and I saw the care and the tension and the 
fear melt away. It made me think of the other homecomings I had been to 
where the commander couldn't say those words, and it made me think 
about them and what they had labored under.
  I made a vow when I came to this body that I would do everything in 
my power to fight tooth and nail against sending our sons and daughters 
into unnecessary wars. I am on the Armed Services Committee. I voted 
for war authorizations. If we need to go to war to defend this country, 
then those who have signed up to do that, knowing that that might be a 
possibility, they are ready to serve us to defend the Nation. But an 
optional war at the whim of a President--ordering troops here and there 
around the globe as if they are a palace guard--for no articulated 
rationale puts our kids at risk in a completely unacceptable way.
  We will have a vote next week on something that I believe is just 
bedrock constitutional law. We shouldn't be at war without a vote of 
Congress. We shouldn't be at war with Iran unless Members of this body 
have the guts to have a debate and vote and put their thumbprint on it 
and say: This is in the national interest.
  No shortcuts. No end runs around Congress. No end runs around debate 
in front of the American people and laying out the stakes for them.
  I can't believe that Virginia, one of the most military States in the 
country, is so different than other parts of this Nation. I can't 
believe that this Nation is itching for another war in the Middle East. 
Haven't we learned something from a quarter of a century of war in the 
Middle East? I hope we have.
  I hope my colleagues will join me next week in suggesting no war 
unless we vote to authorize it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.