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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, nearly 20 years ago, I joined with then- Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon to introduce the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act.

Key provisions of that bill included significant tightening of petroleum-related sanctions that eventually became law and helped push Iran to the negotiating table over its genuinely dangerous nuclear program. Those tough sanctions and unified allied pressure, including from Russia and China, led to an agreement that contained Iran's nuclear program with aggressive international inspections.

I remember hosting the International Atomic Energy Agency Director General many times in the ensuing years where he provided me with updates on the inspections. While sometimes contentious, they were, in fact, working.

During those years, I also met directly with Iranian officials to discuss this agreement, to push them to end their support for regional proxies, and to help return missing and detained Americans in Iran.

So I am not naive about the Iranian regime's threat to the region and even its own people. And while the nuclear agreement wasn't perfect then, it was working. It allowed us to confront Iran about its otherwise troubling behavior without the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon. We made progress.

Yet, during his first term, President Donald Trump walked away from this agreement and replaced it with nothing--nothing but bluster and wishful thinking. The President's approach did not stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear program, but it did undermine the coalition that we had created to counter Iran's nuclear aspirations.

The mess we find ourselves in today--and it is a mess--is one the President has helped to create through his narcissism, impulsiveness, crude threats, and lack of planning.

I have learned during the course of my service in Washington that it is far easier to get into a war than it is to get out of one. We find ourselves today facing a set of easily predictable policy problems despite the stunning skill and bravery of America's military.

The belligerent regime in Iran has not fallen. Already difficult leaders have been replaced by even harder hardliners, with the Revolutionary Guard gaining even more influence.

Iran continues to rebuild its military capabilities and threaten our troops, interests, and allies in the region.

The Strait of Hormuz, which had largely been free and open for the last several decades, is now being held hostage by the remaining Iranian regime--one that is brazenly still threatening ships and charging outrageous tolls for safe passage.

If I asked the American people randomly ``What is this war all about?'' they would start by saying that Iran is a bad actor. Agreed. No argument there. But what are we trying to achieve there?

If they are puzzled by that question, I am, too, because you listen to how the President explained his strategy from the start--let me tell you what the list contains partially. I don't know the complete list.

Why did we do this? Regime change. That was announced almost immediately. Several days later, that was removed.

How about ballistic missiles? Ballistic missiles for sure, and then later, it was said: Well, there is no capacity for ballistic missiles striking the United States or our friends in the near term.

How about nuclear weapons? We want to stop nuclear weapons. But didn't the President say 6 months ago when we attacked that we had obliterated their capacity to build nuclear weapons? He came back to say that was on the agenda too.

When you go through it, the list keeps growing. The initial explanation for why we were there had never mentioned the Strait of Hormuz, and now it is a daily topic. One day, we are fighting to keep them open; the next day, we are fighting to keep them closed. I can't follow the bouncing ball. I don't know what the President's agenda is when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.

The fact that the President suggested last week that the United States would jointly collect payments for access to the Strait of Hormuz is beyond imagination. These funds are being used as extortion funds by Iranian hardliners to rebuild the country's military and continue to fund its terrorist proxies.

After weekend talks in Pakistan--21 hours with the Vice President-- went absolutely nowhere, President Trump announced a U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

At a time when our gasoline prices are skyrocketing, when the revenue from oil, because of the new barrel prices, is reaching record levels not just for the Iranians' profit but the profit of the Russians, who use that to fight in Ukraine, for goodness' sake, who ever sat down at the table before this invasion and analyzed these possibilities, and what was their conclusion? Did we really go to war in Iran to worsen the free flow of goods in the critical Strait of Hormuz and enter into an extortion business with the Iranian regime? It is upside down.

The equally predictable move by the Iranians to try to squeeze the global economy has hurt American consumers and farmers and the global economy--a surprise to no one except President Trump. Americans are already struggling to make ends meet because of the President's cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and his tariff taxes. He is doing everything he can to make this economy even worse. The increase in gas prices--now more than $4 a gallon in Chicago--may be too much for many to bear.

While Americans suffer under high prices, our adversaries are reaping the benefits in profits. The increase in global oil prices and the desperate easing of some oil sanctions by Trump have been a gift to Vladimir Putin, who takes this revenue to renew his bloody war against the Ukrainians. Was that thought about before we invaded Iran?

And let's not forget that Putin, who continues to snub any attempts by President Trump to end the war in Ukraine, has also been helping target American interests in the gulf. He is not neutral; he is helping the Iranians at the expense of American soldiers.

I cannot say it better than New York Times columnist and Middle East expert Tom Friedman. Here is what he wrote recently:

Trump has no clue how to get out of the mess that he has created by starting a war without thinking through the implications.

We desperately need a coherent plan to end this war, one that addresses the remaining highly enriched uranium still in Iran. We need a plan that stabilizes the U.S. and global economy and makes sure any further wars are done with the consent of Congress.

It is not too much to ask that this President--every President who wants to engage in a war follow article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the authority to declare war to Congress. Notably, it is for the American people to decide through their elected Members of Congress. That is why I still support Senator Tammy Duckworth's War Powers Resolution which will be on the floor this week. It is time for us to accept our constitutional responsibility and try to get this mess under control with Iran.

If there was ever a reminder of the importance of the constitutional role of the people's elected representatives, it is in the declaration of war.

This current mess reminds us that those who wrote the Constitution had real wisdom, and those who are executing the plans for this war have not demonstrated that feature.

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