REP BRIAN MAST: Democrats don’t want war powers, they want to wave a white flag
Right now, American forces are engaged against the Iranian regime’s military infrastructure. Our aircraft are striking targets. Our servicemembers are defending American lives. This is not theoretical. It’s not academic. It’s real.
And in the middle of it, some members of Congress want to pass a war powers resolution to force President Donald Trump to pull U.S. forces out of the region while the threat is still active, still imminent.
That’s not an oversight. That’s surrender dressed up as procedure.
Iran didn’t just wake up yesterday as a bad actor. For 47 years, its regime has chanted "death to America," taken our diplomats hostage, bombed our embassies, armed Hezbollah and Hamas, backed militias that have killed American troops and launched missiles at U.S. bases. These are not just one-off attacks, these are imminent threats against the United States, carried out again and again.
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Every president has tried something different — sanctions, negotiations, diplomatic resets, containment. Iran’s answer has always been the same: stall, deceive, continue to fund terrorism and keep building.
Time and again, weak leaders would rather avoid decisive action and instead hand it over to multinational coalitions and the United Nations — an institution that has become so useless and corrupt it actually named Iran as vice-chair of a U.N. body promoting democracy and women’s rights.
Think about that. Iran — the country that fines, imprisons, flogs and kills women for not wearing their hijab. A regime that limits women’s movement, travel, work and access to basic services. And the U.N. puts representatives of that same regime in charge of women’s rights? The idea that the U.N. would take meaningful action against this threat is downright laughable.
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But it is not just multinational coalitions that have failed to hold Iran accountable. Our own weak leaders in the U.S. have pursued policies that further emboldened the Ayatollahs. President Barrack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) delivered pallets of cash to Iran and lifted crippling sanctions. The JCPOA did nothing to dismantle Iran’s ballistic missile program or stop Iran’s regional aggression. It was a failed policy that funneled cash right into the pockets of Iran’s proxies and emboldened the regime as it chanted "death to America."
Or we can talk about how under President Joe Biden, Iran gained access to over $16 billion in unfrozen and accessible assets, allowing it to fund terrorism across the globe, and grow the imminent threat Iran has posed against America for decades.
But let’s talk about what is an "imminent threat."
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The killing of American soldiers at Tower 22 in Jordan, that is an imminent threat. The embassy bombings in Beirut in 1983 and 1984 that took hundreds of lives, that is an imminent threat. And over the past two decades, repeated missile and drone attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria that have put American lives directly in the crosshairs have all been imminent threats. And those attacks happened before Iran had nuclear weapons.
Republicans believe an imminent threat existed, and it certainly exists now when an enemy regime is actively enriching uranium, designing weapons and stockpiling the materials needed to kill Americans.
Democrats act like it’s only imminent when the nuclear warhead is being bolted onto the missile and rolled out onto the launch pad aimed at the United States.
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The danger is real the moment they begin building the gun; why would we wait until the gun is pointed directly at our heads to act?
By then, it’s too late.
A nuclear-armed Iran would be catastrophic. It would embolden every terrorist proxy it funds and would destabilize the Middle East overnight. And it would put American cities in range of a regime that openly calls for our destruction.
That’s why action now isn’t reckless. It’s prevention and protection for thousands, if not millions, of Americans.
But now we have Democrats in Congress pursuing one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation imaginable.
Forcing U.S. forces to withdraw mid-conflict wouldn’t "de-escalate" anything. It would rip away the protective shield that keeps Americans and our allies safe. Thousands of American civilians live and work in the region. Our diplomats, contractors and businesses depend on U.S. air defenses and rapid response capabilities. Pull that out overnight, and you create a vacuum Iran will gladly fill.
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Our allies — Israel and Gulf partners — rely on our missile defense systems, our naval patrols and our joint operations. Pull out now, and you send one message: if you pressure America long enough, we’ll fold and leave our allies out to dry with American lives at risk.
That’s not deterrence. That’s an invitation.
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Congress absolutely has a constitutional role. But that role doesn’t include sabotaging troops while they’re in harm’s way. The war powers debate should be about protecting American lives — not scoring political points.
If my colleagues truly care about American servicemembers, they should stand behind the mission. President Trump has made his objective clear to Congress and the American people — destroy every single piece of machinery or artillery hardware that is able to reach out and touch Americans because Iran has proved they will use everything in its arsenal to harm Americans every chance they get.
He has complete and total authority under Article II and the War Powers Resolution to remove the imminent threat of Iran against the United States, he’s just the first president with the backbone to finally do it.
I thank him for his decisive actions to keep our country safe, I thank each and every one of my brothers and sisters-in-arms for their service, and may God bless America.