The Real Forever War

America is closer to direct conflict with Iran than it has been in a generation.

This morning, the State Department authorized non-essential staff and their families to depart the U.S. Embassy in Israel. Ambassador Mike Huckabee told personnel to leave “TODAY,” as commercial flights are filling up fast and many airlines have already suspended service out of Tel Aviv. This comes on the heels of the U.S. mission in Lebanon evacuating dozens of staff earlier this week.

Into this moment walks the Massie-Khanna War Powers Resolution, which Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) plan to force to a House floor vote as soon as next week. The legislation would require congressional authorization before any military action against Iran. The resolution is expected to fail — and the vote math explains why.

Republicans hold a razor-thin House majority and can afford to lose just two members on any party-line vote. So far, Massie is the only Republican who has publicly committed to supporting it. Critically, several commonsense members are actively opposing it — including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Mike Lawler (R-NY), two of the most respected bipartisan voices in the House.

Their joint statement is worth reading: “So long as ‘Death to America’ remains the rallying cry of the Iranian regime, Iran will remain a persistent and serious threat to our men and women in uniform, our allies, and global stability.”

Reps. Gottheimer and Lawler are right.

US military action against Iran – or any other country – comes with profound risks, and we should expect our leaders in Congress to ask the hard questions about the justification, strategy, and plans for any strike. But no one should be confused about how or why the U.S. and Iran arrived at this moment.

Since 1979, the Iranian regime has been at war with America and has been the single most destabilizing presence in the Middle East. Iran has carried the State Sponsor of Terrorism designation since 1984, through seven consecutive presidential administrations, Democratic and Republicans alike. Most threateningly, despite the regime’s public denials, it spent decades pursuing nuclear weapons. And now, the Iranian regime has declared war on its own people, with some estimates suggesting they killed 30,000 Iranian protesters last month.

Here are several examples of the death and chaos sown by the Iranian regime.

Iran funds Hezbollah, which killed 241 U.S. service members in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing.
Iran provides up to $100 million a year to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Iran arms the Houthis, who have attacked U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea and launched ballistic missiles at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar — where 10,000 American troops are stationed and which serves as the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command.
Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have attacked U.S. forces hundreds of times since 2017.
Iran has deepened its partnership with Cuba, which channels Iranian influence into Latin America.
Iran now routes billions through cryptocurrency to evade sanctions: the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was linked to an estimated $4 to $5 billion in crypto activity last year, prompting the Treasury Department’s first-ever sanctions against crypto exchanges under Iran-specific authority.

And while Iran is located thousands of miles from American shores, the United States has approximately 50,000 troops stationed across the Middle East — in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Israel, plus two carrier strike groups at sea. Iran already knows these locations. That is to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of American citizens living and working across the region.

When Iran retaliates, and it has before, it aims at these personnel and these installations. The current buildup is designed not just to project power toward Iran but to pressure to abandon its nuclear weapons programs, its funding of terror throughout the world and its repression of its own people.

According to Harvard/Harris polling from January, 70 percent of American voters believe Iran is actively rebuilding its nuclear capability. The American public is not confused about what the Iranian regime is. Congress should not be either.