By Kylie Werner | KTAR
PHOENIX — U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, an Arizona Democrat, made it clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.
Stanton told KTAR 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News this is something that Democrats and Republicans agree on.
“There has to be American policy. Iran is a rogue state fomenting violence in the Middle East region through their proxies,” Stanton said. “They directly attacked American interests and American soldiers. So, they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
The congressman highlighted that President Barack Obama was able to negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which limited Iran’s nuclear program to being exclusively peaceful. However, President Donald Trump pulled out of that agreement during his first term.
Rep. Greg Stanton’s thoughts on Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear sites
Stanton stated that he’s not necessarily opposed to Trump switching gears from negotiating with Iran to a military solution, but emphasized that Trump has yet to provide any reasons for the switch.
“We were supposed to have a classified briefing yesterday in Congress. For some reason, the Trump administration canceled that briefing,” Stanton said.
Stanton noted that there are a lot of questions surrounding the attack.
“He originally said it completely obliterated their nuclear program. We don’t know if that’s true because we haven’t had a full assessment by the intelligence community,” Stanton said. “And if we haven’t obliterated it, as Donald Trump indicated, we may be back to relative square one if this has only set the program back a few months.”
There are people in Congress who have said that Trump didn’t have the authority to launch the attack.
Stanton said that it’s a difficult legal question as the president does have the authority to make an immediate decision to defend if there’s a threat to American soldiers, United States’ interests or allies’ interests.
“Presidents in the past have taken action without congressional approval. There’s always a debate about whether or not it’s a violation of the War Powers Act,” Stanton said.
“What we do know for sure is that the president now has to come to Congress and present the evidence and the reasons for. Under the War Powers Act, if hostilities were to continue, there has to be a vote of the United States Congress. That is the law.”
What does Stanton suggest if Iran nuclear sites were not ‘obliterated’?
The congressman said that if Trump’s attack did not in fact “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear sites then diplomacy is the better solution — that is, if it is a realistic option.
“We have a challenge now because the president was engaging in diplomacy with the Iranian regime. … He was indicating we were … about to have our sixth meeting with them at the time he decided to do a military option instead of a diplomatic one,” Stanton said. “So, if you’re in ongoing negotiations with someone and in the middle of that you switch gears and go to a bombing strategy, that may not lend itself then to good future negotiations for obvious reasons.”
Stanton added that he thinks Trump owes the American people an explanation since he came forward multiple times and said that negotiations with Iran were going well.
“If something changed, he owes it to the American people to indicate why he switched gears and strategies, vis-à-vis the Iran nuclear program,” Stanton said.
The congressman emphasized that for the credibility of the United States, it’s important that the country keeps its international commitments but that Trump pulling out of JCPOA and the Paris Climate Accord might have built skepticism on if the U.S. can keep its international agreements.
“I do think that under these current circumstances, our diplomatic efforts are going to be a real challenge moving forward,” Stanton said.