[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 22, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4236-S4238]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAN
Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you. The Senator appreciates your pronunciation of
my home State, which people across America have a hard time often
figuring out.
Mr. President, I am here tonight joining my colleague from Wisconsin
on a very serious topic: that our Nation is at war; that our
servicemembers are dying; that for every one who dies, so many are
injured--a war that is absolutely hurting us in every possible way.
Operation Epic Fury has become ``Operation Epic Failure.''
On February 28, President Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
launched this unconstitutional war against Iran.
President Trump was asked how long would this last. He said: 4 or 5
weeks. He talked about how our overwhelming military power would
produce Iranian leaders who would plead--who would plead--for an
unconditional surrender.
Mr. President, 16 weeks later, the war was still going on, but then
there was agreement to a 14-point outline of a cease-fire agreement.
But because it was just an outline, because the countries hadn't worked
out their different understandings of the points, just as President
Trump completely blotched the war, he completely blotched the
negotiation; so it was back to war.
President Trump announced new strikes on Iran, and we are now in the
21st week of that 4- to 5-week war. Time and time again, leaders think
they can launch a war and make a series of assumptions that prove to be
wrong, and here we are again.
We were wrong with the assumption you could occupy Afghanistan and
build something resembling a modern democratic nation.
We were wrong in spending our resources to attack Iraq, which was a
counterbalance to Iran and undid this balance in a way that created
Iranian influence through an arc that extended clear across to Lebanon.
You know, our Constitution clearly assigns the question of war to
Congress. So to my Republican colleagues: Why aren't you insisting that
Congress make this decision rather than the President?
Madison summarized: The Constitution supposes, what the history of
all governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power
most interested in war, and most prone to it. [The Constitution] has
accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the
Legislative [branch].
That is us. That is us. It is not the President. And the reasoning
was that an Executive can too easily make assumptions that something
will be quick and easy, but you are committing the lives of our
citizens--you are committing the treasure of the Nation--and that
should require careful consideration. One person alone, our Founders
said, should not be able to take a Republic to war. That is what Kings
do. That is what authoritarian strongmen do. But we are not--need I
remind you--a strongman authoritarian state--at least we are not by our
Constitution. We are a democratic Republic, so let's start acting like
it and let's start honoring the structure of our Constitution.
That structure assigns the power of the purse to Congress. So every
single Senator should be down here protesting when the President
cancels a program that has been authorized and funded. Every single
Senator should be down here protesting when the President creates a
slush fund to do projects that are not authorized and not funded--that
is our responsibility. Unfortunately, this Chamber has failed, for the
most part, to defend its role and to defend the Constitution.
[[Page S4237]]
We did have a concurrent resolution under the War Powers Act that
directed the President to remove United States forces from hostilities
with Iran, but the majority has acted like we didn't actually pass it,
and the President has acted like it wasn't passed. And the majority has
failed to protest to the President that he is not respecting the fact
that it was passed.
If you can't stand behind the acts of this Chamber, if you can't
stand behind the Constitution, then how far off track are we as a
nation?
We just got through with a conversation about the fact that this
Congress asked for a coin to be minted that reflected the values of our
Nation upon our 250 years since our Declaration of Independence, but
instead Trump did what dictators do, just as Caesar broke Roman
tradition to put his face on a coin and to declare dictator forever,
``dictator in perpetuity,'' just as King George III put his face on a
coin to reflect that power came from him down to the people rather than
flowing up from the people--that is a mega difference between an
authoritarian state and a democratic republic.
The consequences of Trump's war of choice and the consequences of the
Republican leadership's failure to exert their constitutional
responsibility to end President Trump's war of choice is that 18
servicemembers are dead and hundreds and hundreds of Americans are
badly injured.
Thousands of Iranian civilians are dead--including a whole lot of
children, many of whom died from a strike by America, by President
Trump's team, on a girl's elementary school.
The war strengthened Iran's hardliners--that is what happens when you
assassinate the religious leaders and the political leaders--people
rally to their country.
It weakened Iran's reformers who wanted to see a different path for
their nation.
It enriched Russia. In fact, President Trump proceeded to say that we
would no longer enforce the restriction on the Russian sale of oil so
they could sell at the world price. Billions and billions of dollars
flowed into Russia because of this war--billions and billions of
dollars that could be used in the war against Ukraine. That is a war
started by a dictatorship against a democratic republic that we should
be standing with.
We should be standing with the people of Ukraine, not enriching
Russia to buy more weapons to attack them.
The taxpayers, they are certainly losers--$40 billion of national
treasure was the estimate given to us yesterday from the Secretary of
Defense. And by all estimates, that doesn't include repairing all of
the facilities damaged throughout the Middle East that the United
States is involved in.
Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was open. Now it is closed. That
certainly doesn't benefit us or the world.
It has driven up the cost of gas; it has driven up the inflation
rate. So Americans, in addition to $40 billion of their collective
treasure, are paying out of their pocket so much more at the pump. The
price in Oregon has been over $5 a gallon.
Farmers, they have lost too. They were already hit hard by the
tariffs, but now they are hit by the high diesel prices to operate
their machinery and by the high cost of fertilizer, all of which could
be envisioned if there had been a debate here over whether we should go
to war with Iran.
We would have heard from the experts who would say: You understand
the Strait of Hormuz is a very narrow channel, and Iran has cruise
missiles that can proceed to hit ships in the strait, so they have
cards to play. We would have debated that if we had had that debate and
carried out our constitutional responsibility.
We would have observed that that would have a horrific impact on
American families. We would have observed that it would have a terrible
impact on American farmers. But we didn't observe that because we
didn't hold the debate.
But, say you: Did we not hold oversight hearings at least? Not a
single one--another failure of our constitutional responsibility. This
group of Senators, through the committees, not a single oversight
hearing of the war.
President Trump promised to lower prices and end wars, but he has
raised prices, and he has started a war.
Trump posted on Truth Social:
From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of
Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz . . . the
United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER
PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital
City of Tehran.
From the beginning, President Trump thought the power to bomb was his
ace up his sleeve. Is President Trump a strategic analyst of wars? No.
He just had this instinct--his gut--saying: We have more bombs than
they do, so they will fold.
But he was wrong. And through this campaign, he just keeps repeating
the same thing: If they don't do what we want, we will bomb them even
more.
We will bomb them even more--the echo time and time and time again.
In the beginning, Trump said this war was one we entered because
Binyamin Netanyahu was going to bomb Iran anyway, and there would be
retaliation so we might as well join the war with him. That was the
justification for the United States going to war?
Eventually, he got around to saying: This is about the nuclear
materials and making sure that they don't make a nuclear bomb. Our
Director of National Intelligence had been very clear that Iran had
never made a decision to build a bomb.
And the basic measures to prevent them from having a bomb--getting
rid of their highly enriched uranium and moving it out of their country
under international supervision; having the IAEA--the International
Atomic Energy Agency--monitor everything they do; dismantle their
plutonium nuclear reactor--all those measures were already done by an
international agreement supported by five major powers--Britain and
France and China and Russia and the United States--all together,
insisting that these measures were necessary to make sure Iran never
got a bomb.
So they did all those things. They dismantled their nuclear reactor--
their plutonium nuclear reactors called a rock reactor--and they
proceeded to ship their highly enriched uranium out, and they let in
all of the inspectors, and they followed all the rules of the
centrifuges.
And who tore up that agreement and created a pathway for Iran to
potentially covertly pursue a bomb? That man is President Trump.
So President Trump destroys the international agreement that prevents
pursuit of a nuclear weapon and then proceeds to start a war to achieve
the same result. And then he discovers the war doesn't work, so he has
a 14-point plan.
Well, that plan kind of was jaw-dropping, particularly to my
Republican colleagues. It called for America to organize an
international Marshall Plan for Iran with some $300-plus million of
help. It called for immediate access for Iran to some $24 billion of
funds--after they had spent a decade complaining about Iran getting
access to $1.5 billion, under the previous agreement, of its own money.
What is $1.5 billion compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars
that Trump was providing to Iran in the 14-point agreement?
Now we are hearing reports that homes have been hit, schools have
been hit, hospitals have been hit. We are taking out bridges. The
President is bragging about doing that. There was a report that two
desalination plants have been hit in Iran. We don't have confirmation
of it. I asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday if
indeed we had targeted or hit desalination plants. He said he didn't
know but that he would get back to us. So I am looking forward to
getting that information.
And why is that important? Because targeting a desalination plant is
widely considered to be a war crime. So I hope those reports are wrong.
Why is it a war crime? Because destroying access to drinkable water--
and one of these plants was reported to serve some 10,000 people in 20
villages--is considered unacceptable under international law. That is
why it is a war crime--because it is not a strategic military
objective, unless forcing people to have no access to water is a war
strategy, which it is not.
I hope that report is wrong. I hope it is not the case that we
targeted desalination plants. Iran is reported to have targeted a
desalination plant as well.
So the war is potentially devolving here as we are hitting more and
more
[[Page S4238]]
things that affect civilian life as well as having killed thousands of
civilians directly. The laws of war prohibit attacks on objects
indispensable to civilian survival, including water and food.
So where are we? Trump now claims the main mission of this war is to
stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But Iran's highly enriched
uranium--that it only has because he tore up the agreement that
prevented them from having that--is buried deep underground, so there
is no easy way to extract it. If there is no easy way to extract it,
how is this war supposed to solve that?
So the administration now believes negotiations are essential to be
able to withdraw because there is no military answer. Maybe if we had
had a debate here in Congress, we would have discussed the fact that
there was no military strategy that would result in the extraction of
that highly enriched uranium, that it would have to be done by
agreement. So we are in the fifth month of Trump trying to bomb his way
to an answer, the fifth month of that strategy failing.
Negotiators and facilitators of negotiators have proceeded to suggest
a 10-day cease-fire to enable return to try to work out some of the
details from that previous 14-point outline to solve this war. I
support that effort because the path we are on is hurting America in
every possible way and hurting a whole lot of civilians overseas.
So let's embrace and exercise our constitutional responsibility and
pass Senator Van Hollen's War Powers Resolution to end this reckless
war of choice. If the President ignores it after we have passed it,
then let's collectively insist on defending the role of the Senate and
the House under our Constitution to be the place where the decisions
are made about going to war. It is time that we honor our
responsibility.
I know there are a lot of Members who don't want to have to have that
debate because they are afraid they will get it wrong--they will make a
vote for war and it will be a disaster or they will vote against war
and their constituents will disagree. But shirking the responsibility
is unacceptable. So strap your big-boy pants on and do the work we were
elected under our Constitution to do.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
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