Democrats fret over Iran escalation risk
Democrats are urging the Donald Trump administration to tamp down tensions with Iran following an all-members briefing.
The United States’ top diplomat and its lead civilian and military defense officials today failed to assuage lawmakers’ concerns that the country may be inadvertently hurtling toward war with Iran.
“I still don’t have a clear idea of what the administration’s objectives are,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., told reporters after today’s briefing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford. “They have said over and over again that regime change is not the objective. What is the maximum pressure campaign trying to achieve?”
Ahead of the hearing, Pompeo tweeted that he was headed to Capitol Hill for a “serious discussion” about “40 years of unprovoked Iranian aggression.” But Democrats had little patience for it: Smith said the secretary of state launched a “very lengthy political argument” for 10 minutes before the Washington Democrat felt compelled to cut him off.
“There was a lot of talk in the briefing about how there’s a huge risk of Iran miscalculating, striking in a way that gets a response they didn’t anticipate,” Smith said while defending the Donald Trump administration’s decision to send bombers and a US aircraft carrier group to the region.
