Why Congress and the people should stop Trump from attacking Iran

After months of trying to negotiate a deal to stop Iran’s nuclear program, President Trump seems to be moving towards a direct military attack on their nuclear facilities. Congress should act quickly to block it, because such an attack would be unnecessary, counterproductive, and profoundly dangerous:

Unnecessary because the US intelligence community has concluded that Iran does not have an active weapons program. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 25, the Director of National Intelligence stated that the intelligence community, “Continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ali] Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”

The intelligence community has not changed that assessment despite claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran was “marching very quickly” toward a bomb.

In fact, 24 hours before Israel launched its attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, President Trump was actively pursuing a negotiated settlement—the New York Times reported Trump as saying that “I don’t want them [Israel] going in,” adding that “an attack was likely to destroy the chances for a diplomatic solution.”

Counterproductive because there appears to be little chance that a military attack can eliminate the Iranian nuclear program unless the regime is overthrown; and in the aftermath of a failed effort to destroy the program, it is more likely Iran will actually seek nuclear weapons.

The current Iranian regime accepted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (also known as the “Iran nuclear deal”) to limit its nuclear program in 2015. The agreement was negotiated by the Obama administration plus all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany, and the European Union. According to both the US and Israeli intelligence communities, Iran was abiding by that agreement when Trump pulled out in 2018. Even then, according to US intelligence agencies, the regime did not pursue a nuclear weapon, though it has engaged in unnecessary and reckless provocation of the world community by enriching uranium to levels well above that needed for a civilian nuclear program.

But if this relative restraint is rewarded with a massive US military attack, what motivation will there be for Iran to continue to abide by its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? On the contrary, like North Korea, it may well conclude that nuclear weapons are necessary for its future security and do whatever it can to acquire them.

Dangerous because no one knows how this profound escalation of the fighting between Israel and Iran will play out or how many more innocent people will be killed.

What if the United States attacks Fordow with a GBU-57 “bunker buster” bomb and the bomb does not take out the deeply buried site? Does the United States escalate up to the use of a nuclear weapon?

A 2005 report issued by Physicians for Social Responsibility examined the effects of an attack on the Iranian nuclear facility in Isfahan with a 1.2-megaton B-83 thermonuclear warhead, then under consideration for use in a Robust Earth Nuclear Penetrator (the “bunker buster”). The study used software known as the Hazard Prediction and Assessment Capability—developed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency—to model nuclear weapons explosions’ effects. The study found that the attack could kill 3 million people—half of them from radiation sickness—and that the radioactive fallout would spread over a wide area of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

The population near Fordow is much smaller than in Isfahan, but the death toll and radioactive contamination resulting from the use of a nuclear weapon there would still be catastrophic.

Whether the United States escalates to the use of nuclear weapons or not, how does the rest of the world respond? Does Iran close the Straight of Hormuz, through which a quarter of the world’s oil and a third of its natural gas pass production pass each day? Is Iran able to mobilize what is left of its proxy groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen? Do other global powers get drawn into the conflict? And most importantly, why would anyone court any of these risks when a diplomatic solution is still possible?

Consequently, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) have introduced a bipartisan war powers resolution in the House to prevent President Trump from attacking Iran without explicit Congressional approval, and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) has introduced a similar resolution in the Senate. Congress should pass these measures and reclaim its power as the sole branch of government authorized by the Constitution to declare war. And it should act quickly before the administration commits the American people to an unnecessary and disastrous war.

Beyond the immediate danger, this crisis underlines the continuing danger the world faces as long as nuclear weapons exist. Nuclear weapons should not be in the hands of Ayatollah Khamenei, but they should not be in anyone else’s hands either. Quite simply, there are no “right hands” for nuclear arms.

The United States needs to negotiate an agreement with Iran to eliminate its nuclear program. It also needs to negotiate with the other eight countries which already have nuclear weapons, including Israel, to reach an agreement whereby they commit to eliminating their nuclear arsenals. India and Pakistan almost went to war in May, and this could have quickly escalated to an all-out exchange of nuclear weapons, leading to a global nuclear famine. The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues and carries at all times the danger of escalation to nuclear war. The world has dodged the bullet so far, but how long is luck going to hold? It is time to get rid of these weapons before they get rid of humanity.