Barr backs war with Iran hours after it begins

Hours after the U.S. mil­i­tary launched airstrikes and mis­siles against Iran in an attempt to over­throw that nation’s author­i­tar­i­an régime, 6^th District Congressman Andy Barr was in Winchester defend­ing President Donald J. Trump’s decision.

Barr, who is run­ning for the U.S. Senate and court­ing the president’s endorse­ment, told a crowd of about 50 Republicans at the Hannah McClure Cardinal Community Center Saturday morn­ing that the pres­i­dent had tried to avoid mil­i­tary action over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program.

“This pres­i­dent gave the cler­ics and the aya­tol­lah every off-ramp they need­ed,” Barr said, insist­ing that Trump “wants peace.”

“But he nego­ti­ates from a posi­tion of strength, and the rea­son why he as com­man­der in chief moved all our mil­i­tary assets into the the­ater is because he want­ed to give him­self the most lever­age he could to cut a deal.”

Barr said he was in a stu­dio on Friday when he got updates that the Geneva talks with Iran’s gov­ern­ment were break­ing down. Then Saturday morn­ing, at 1:15 EST, the U.S. joined the Israeli Defense Forces in launch­ing strate­gic strikes against the cap­i­tal, Tehran, and oth­er Iranian cities. Among those killed were the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, and sev­er­al mem­bers of his fam­i­ly, as well as oth­er polit­i­cal leaders.

The pres­i­dent announced the sur­prise attack on his social media site, Truth Social. He issued a state­ment to the Iranian peo­ple that this was their oppor­tu­ni­ty to over­throw the régime that has been in place since the 1979 Islamist rev­o­lu­tion that top­pled the country’s monarchy.

Iran respond­ed by launch­ing mis­siles and drones across the region, tar­get­ing Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, where there is a U.S. naval base.

Iran’s clos­ing of the Strait of Hormuz has dis­rupt­ed oil and gas shipments.

Pro-Iran demon­stra­tors attempt­ed to storm the U.S. con­sulate in Karachi, Pakistan, and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. The United Nations has con­demned the attack for desta­bi­liz­ing the Middle East.

But Barr believes many coun­tries in the region sup­port the U.S.-Israeli action.

“They’re attack­ing Muslims,” he said of the Shiite Muslim régime. “We have alliances that extend far beyond Israel. Moderate Arab nations are with the United States right now and sup­port­ing our troops.”

Some Arab nations, how­ev­er, have urged restraint. According to the Associated Press, Egypt’s pres­i­dent, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, warned of “grave reper­cus­sions” and urged a return to nego­ti­a­tions. Saudi Arabia expressed “deep con­cern,” but did not con­demn the strikes. Qatar, home to the largest U.S. mil­i­tary base in the Middle East, issued a state­ment urg­ing restraint and avoid­ing esca­la­tion, “which the peo­ples of the region, bur­dened by con­flicts and their trag­ic human­i­tar­i­an reper­cus­sions, can­not tolerate.”

Barr said Trump set three “red lines” for Iran dur­ing his nego­ti­a­tions. One was that the coun­try must give up its efforts to devel­op nuclear weapons and inter­na­tion­al bal­lis­tic mis­siles capa­ble of hit­ting the United States and oth­er coun­tries. Two, it must stop sup­port­ing ter­ror­ist prox­ies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Shia mili­tias in Iraq. And three, it must stop killing protesters.

“Thirty thou­sand inno­cent Iranians who want a bet­ter future and free­dom have been slaugh­tered by the cler­ics in Iran over the last sev­er­al weeks,” he said.

Barr said Iran has been the world’s lead­ing state sup­port­er of ter­ror­ism for 47 years. In 1979, when Islamist rev­o­lu­tion­ists took over and over­threw Iran’s bru­tal monar­chy and estab­lished a theoc­ra­cy, 52 American hostages were cap­tured and held for 444 days. Since then, Iran has sup­port­ed ter­ror­ist efforts against the United States and Israel.

“It’s not just that they call for the anni­hi­la­tion of our key allies in the Middle East, it’s in the same breath that they chant, ‘Death to America!’” Barr said. “They were behind all of it, and this pres­i­dent has run out of patience.”

Barr said he and oth­er mem­bers have been told that the mil­i­tary effort, Operation Epic Fury, “will not entail boots on the ground,” at least not of Americans, and that it will not be a pro­tract­ed operation.

“This is not an end­less war,” he said.

Trump said Monday, how­ev­er, that he would not rule out American ground troops.

Barr said he expects that the admin­is­tra­tion will soon ask Congress for an empow­er­ment res­o­lu­tion to autho­rize the action.

The Constitution gives Congress the author­i­ty to declare war, but under the War Powers Resolution, the pres­i­dent may take mil­i­tary action with­out pri­or con­gres­sion­al approval if Congress is noti­fied with­in 48 hours and the action is lim­it­ed to 60 days, with an addi­tion­al 30 days to with­draw troops.

Other reactions

Not every­one in Kentucky’s most­ly Republican del­e­ga­tion sup­port­ed the president’s deci­sion to go to war or to do so with­out get­ting con­gres­sion­al approval.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R‑Ky., told the Kentucky Lantern he was opposed to the war and will work with Rep. Ro Khanna, D‑Calif., to force a con­gres­sion­al vote on the administration’s mil­i­tary action.

Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, whose seat Barr is run­ning for, said Iran “deserves no sym­pa­thy.” But Kentucky’s oth­er Republican sen­a­tor, Rand Paul, said he must oppose “anoth­er pres­i­den­tial war” and said that the Constitution con­ferred to Congress, not the exec­u­tive branch, the pow­er to ini­ti­ate war “to make war less likely.”

Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Louisville, the only Democrat in Kentucky’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion, opposed the action and called on Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to “recon­vene the House imme­di­ate­ly so Congress can vote on the War Powers Resolution. I will vote to pro­tect our troops and stop Trump’s ille­gal war.”

According to The Washington Post, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. knew that Israel was going to strike Iran, which would imper­il U.S. forces in the region, so the admin­is­tra­tion decid­ed to join Israel in the strikes to reduce the risk.

A Washington Post poll Sunday of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 52 per­cent opposed the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion, although among Republicans, sup­port was 81 per­cent. Only 9 per­cent of Democrats sup­port­ed it.

In an inter­view with The New York Post, Trump said he didn’t care what the polling showed.

“I have to do the right thing. This should have been done a long time ago,” he said.

Reuters report­ed that the Pentagon acknowl­edged in brief­in­gs with con­gres­sion­al staff on Sunday that there was no intel­li­gence sug­gest­ing Iran planned to attack U.S. forces first. However, the pres­i­dent had said Saturday that his objec­tive was “elim­i­nat­ing immi­nent threats from the Iranian régime.”