Schatz Condemns Disastrous Consequences Of Iran War

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yesterday spoke on the Senate floor about the disastrous consequences of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran.

“Not only was this war reckless and illegal and unnecessary, but it also didn't get us anything. It's made a lot of things worse,” said Senator Schatz. “The mistake is not ending the war, it was starting it in the first place. Every day this war went on only compounded that catastrophe. And so we ought to be relieved that it may be over and that diplomacy is being given another chance, because it is the only viable path forward. But none of that obviates the fact that we are suing for peace because it's the least bad option. That a diplomatic solution was within reach all along, before a single bomb was dropped. That after several months of a deadly and costly war, things are worse, not better.”

A transcript of Senator Schatz's remarks is below. Video is available here.

For every American who is wondering what on earth the war in Iran over the past three and a half months was for, the answer is relatively simple: next to nothing. 13 American service members are dead. Thousands of Iranians have been killed. We spent tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Gas shot up to $5.70 in Hawaii. Grocery bills and energy bills spiked everywhere. We depleted our stockpiles of critical weapons systems. We alienated even our closest allies, who understandably wanted nothing to do with this regime change war of choice. And what was it all for? What did we get out of it?

Well, if you take one look at the memorandum of understanding that Donald Trump signed last week, what is plainly obvious is that not only was this war reckless and illegal and unnecessary, but it also didn't get us anything. It's made a lot of things worse. We don't have a nuclear agreement yet, only a framework to try to reach something close to the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. So, to be clear, pre-Trump, we had a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. We had the ability for the IAEA to come in to Iran and do intrusive inspections. We had a plan to dispose of the fissile material in a third party country and to be able to verify it. And now what we have is an MOU to negotiate. And if we are very fortunate, if things break absolutely in every correct direction, we will get back to where we were 12 years ago.

The same regime is still in place, but now it's younger and more radical, and they've demonstrated that they have substantial leverage in the Strait of Hormuz. The opposition in Iran is weaker. One of the hopes of this regime change war was they were going to see the destruction coming from the American and Israeli military, and it would rally the opposition. And the ayatollahs would collapse and give up, and there would be a regime change and a new era in Iran. It's gotten worse. They're younger and more radical, and they have more leverage.

Now, I want to be really clear here. The mistake is not ending the war, it was starting it in the first place. Every day this war went on only compounded that catastrophe. And so we ought to be relieved that it may be over and that diplomacy is being given another chance, because it is the only viable path forward. But none of that obviates the fact that we are suing for peace because it's the least bad option. That a diplomatic solution was within reach all along, before a single bomb was dropped. That after several months of a deadly and costly war, things are worse, not better.

On February 27th, the day before the war started, the Strait of Hormuz was open. Oil and other commodities like fertilizer flowed freely to all of the places around the world. Now, under the MOU, the strait is open again, but only for 60 days, after which Iran is reserving the right to charge a fee for ships to pass. Do you understand how unprecedented it is in terms of international law, in terms of international commerce, in terms of the way this planet works with freedom of navigation? That one belligerent country now gets to charge a fee if you want to move something through international waters. That is not a W. That is not good for this country or regional stability.

Under the original Iran agreement that President Obama signed and Trump later ripped up, Iran promised not to develop a nuclear weapon. It was right there on the first page of the JCPOA. And what it meant was that Iran would not produce the kind of highly enriched uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon. They've renewed that commitment in the MOU, except for a much higher price this time. Under the JCPOA, and I remember I was on the floor, I was a baby senator here. And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, oh my God, you are unfreezing Iranian sanctioned money assets to the tune of many billions of dollars. Can you believe how much money we are giving to Iran in exchange for this pause in the development of their nuclear program? Can you believe that you're giving money to Iran? Look how belligerent they are in the region. That was the argument, okay? I thought it was worth it because it was basically buying us 15 years of them not being capable to develop a nuclear weapon.

But under this and by the way, not in exchange for a nuclear agreement, in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days. So I want you to understand what they are getting is enormous. But it's also not even for a nuclear agreement. It's for an agreement to stop choking the global economy. Not only will their assets be unfrozen, they will be able to sell their oil freely on the open market for the first time in 30 years. That is not some $1.7 billion concession. That is not some $10 billion concession. That changes generations of bipartisan policy against the Iranian regime. One of the reasons that they were not even more belligerent, even more powerful, was that we were heavily sanctioning their oil, and we are lifting it in exchange for not a nuclear agreement for them, but just for them to take their boot off the neck of the global economy.

And so I reiterate this point. Keep two thoughts in your head. First of all, the main error was in starting this stupid regime change war in the first place, and that you don't have to be some member of the Foreign Relations Committee, or some fancy foreign policy expert, or some professor at some school that studies the Middle East to say, hey, you know what? These same dudes keep asking for a new regime change war in the Middle East about every decade. They usually get it and it always fails. And they did it again. And it failed again. And that is a different thing from me demanding that they continue this idiocy. I am not demanding that they continue this idiocy. I am glad that they are finally folding. But make no mistake, they are folding. And they are folding because they played a terrible hand as terribly as you could possibly play it.

And so all I'm asking if you're an Iran hawk, if you're a dove, if you're anywhere in between us, let's have a logical foreign policy. Let's understand that Iran is a belligerent country. They are not our allies, and that almost every single time, not every time, but almost every single time, kinetic engagement without any kind of strategy doesn't work and always backfires. And by the way, that's generally speaking, true. It is extraordinarily, predictably true in the Middle East.

And I want to make one final point. It's the same people every time. It's the same foreign policy think tanks. It's the same people in the media. It's the same nonprofits. It's the same members of Congress. They just look around the planet for a place to remake with force. And there may be a couple of examples in human history when you can remake a place with force, but usually it backfires spectacularly. And it did here again.

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