I want to take a moment to address the events in Iraq and the escalating crisis in the Middle East. Yesterday, President Trump ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general, Qassem Solemani, in Iraq, along with the leader of an Iraqi militia. This is a dangerous escalation that brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East, which could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars, and lead to even more deaths, more conflict, more displacement in that already highly volatile region of the world.
When I voted against the war in Iraq in 2002, I feared that it would result in greater destabilization in that country and the entire region. At the time, I warned about the deadly so-called unintended consequences of a unilateral invasion.
Today, 17 years later, that fear has unfortunately turned out to be a truth. The United States has lost some 4,500 brave men and women fighting in Iraq, tens of thousands have been wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and trillions of dollars have been spent on that war.
The result: today we have massive unrest in that country, we have corruption in that country, we have terrible poverty in that country and now, Iraqis want American troops out.
All of that suffering. All of that death. All of those huge expenditures of money. For what?
It gives me no pleasure to tell you that, at this moment, we face a similar crossroads fraught with danger. Once again we must worry about unintended consequences and the impact of unilateral decision making.
Let me repeat a warning I gave in 2002 during the debate over the war in Iraq: “War must be the last recourse in our international relations. And as a caring nation, we must do everything we can to prevent the horrible suffering that a war will cause.”
As the former chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, I have seen up close the pain, death, and despair caused by war.
I’ve gone to too many funerals in my own state. I’ve talked to too many mothers who have lost their kids in war. I’ve talked to too many soldiers, men and women, who have come home with PTSD, who have come home without arms and without legs.
And I know that it is rarely the children of the billionaire class who face the agony of reckless foreign policy. It is the children of working families.
Let us not forget that when Trump took office, we had a nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by the Obama administration along with our closest allies. Countries from all over the world came together to negotiate that agreement that put a lid on Iran’s nuclear program.
The wise course would have been to stick with that nuclear agreement, enforce its provisions, and use that diplomatic channel with Iran to address a wide range of other concerns, including their support of terrorism.
Unfortunately, Trump ignored the advice of his own security officials and listened to right-wing extremists, some of whom were exactly the same people who got us into the war in Iraq in the first place.
As we all remember, Trump promised to end endless wars. Tragically, his actions now put us on the path to another war, potentially one that could be even worse than before.
The truth as we all know is that the world today is a very dangerous place. We are seeing a movement, all across the planet, towards authoritarianism. We are seeing a growing arms race, and we are seeing nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable and hostile regimes. I believe that in the midst of all of that, the role of the United States, difficult though it may be, must be to work with the international community to end conflicts, to end the threat of war, not to promote war as Trump is doing.
This is how the true power of the United States is shown, and that is how I will use American power as president.
As I think we have seen for several years now, Trump makes decisions impulsively, without explanation, and -- in this case, as in the past -- without any Congressional consultation. I believe strongly that a key step in ending our endless wars is for the Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over matters of war.
Our Founding Fathers had it right, and they gave the responsibility of war to Congress, and that is exactly where it must be placed.
I find it incredible that at the same time as Trump is greatly expanding military spending -- and I am proud to tell you that I have voted against all of Trump’s military budgets -- at the same time he is spending billions more on the military, he is cutting back on the diplomatic capabilities of the State Department to negotiate agreements around the world. And that to my mind is a very dangerous course of action.
I have consistently opposed this dangerous path to war with Iran. But we need to do more than just stop the potential of a war. We need to firmly commit to ending the U.S. military presence in the Middle East in an orderly manner, not through a tweet, and must understand that these wars have cost us so much in blood and treasure. We must end our involvement in the Yemen war led by Saudi Arabia, which is now one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes on earth, and bring our troops home from Afghanistan.
Instead of provoking more volatility in the region, the United States must use its power, its wealth and its influence to bring the regional powers to the table to resolve conflicts.
Let me conclude by simply saying this: At a time when we have 500,000 Americans who are homeless today, including 30,000 veterans, at a time when some 87 million people are either uninsured or underinsured and 30,000 die each year because they don’t get to a doctor when they should, and at a time when we face an urgent need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, to build the housing that we desperately need and to address the existential crisis of climate change, we as a nation must get our priorities right. We must invest in the needs of the American people, not spend trillions more on endless wars.
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