Since the beginning of the Iran war in February, Nebraskans have been paying more at the pump and the grocery store. Rising fertilizer and diesel costs are pushing farmers statewide towards bankruptcy and small businesses are reporting rising shipping costs, delayed package deliveries, and souring consumer behaviors.
Yet Nebraska’s Republican Congresspeople, including Sen. Pete Ricketts, just renewed their support for President Trump’s decision to resume armed conflict in the area.
“Iran had plenty of opportunities to agree on a diplomatic solution,” Ricketts said in a statement. “If Iran wants to pursue aggression instead of peace, then it’s time to turn the pressure back up.”
In fact, since hostilities resumed, Ricketts has blamed Iran for ongoing high gas prices and fertilizer—even though the chokepoint for both is the Strait of Hormuz, which was open until the US initiated attacks against Iran.
The Iran war remains unpopular with the American public, as just 36% of respondents said they support it in a recent survey. Continued combat in Iran—which some argue is illegal to begin with— is likely to prolong hardships for Americans and cost human lives on both sides. So why are politicians like Ricketts promoting it?
Trump’s, Ricketts’ ‘nuclear weapon’ argument falters
Trump’s stated reasoning for starting a war with Iran has varied over time, but his most common justification is that the US refuses to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. Ricketts has repeated this claim on at least four separate occasions, most recently in early July. In May, as part of his second parroting of Trump’s stance against Iranian nuclear capabilities, Ricketts added that Iran should never be allowed to have “a missile to reach the United States.”
This stance has been undercut twice—once by Trump himself and once before the war even began.
On June 17, less than one month after Ricketts said Iran couldn’t have a missile that could reach American soil, Trump told reporters it would be “okay” for Iran to have ballistic missiles once the war was over.
“If other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump said.
China and Russia—strategic partners of Iran—each have intercontinental ballistic missiles that could easily reach the US from Iran if sold and transported to Tehran. Ricketts has yet to correct or clarify his stance on such missiles since Trump refused to rule them out.
Then there’s the question of enriched uranium, which does little to justify Ricketts’ continued support for the Iran conflict. Iran is believed to have 970 lbs. of uranium enriched to 60%. The country has claimed this is simply for nuclear power, but that only requires 3-5% enrichment. Weapons-grade uranium must be 90% enriched, so it’s reasonable to assume Iran’s supply has been enriched for weapons purposes.
However, enriched uranium can be “downblended,” which jumpstarts an irreversible process that dilutes it to appropriate levels for nuclear power but prevents it from re-approaching nuclear weapons capability. Al Jazeera reported that “on February 26, during informal negotiations with the US in Geneva two days before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, Tehran had already offered to downblend the stockpile from 60 percent enrichment to 3.67%.”
Put simply, if this is true, Iran was already offering to back away from nuclear weapons capabilities, negating the argument that it would require an invasion to stop it happening. At the very least, it’s been confirmed that negotiations between the US and Iran were still ongoing, meaning war was never the only option, despite what Trump—and Ricketts—have repeatedly alleged.
Iran war unprecedented, legally unclear after War Powers Resolution
US law generally requires presidents to attain congressional approval before going to war, but several presidents have initiated military operations without it, citing various privileges of power.
However, at least one important factor separates the Iran war from previous incidents.
On June 23, Congress passed an act demanding Trump cease conflict with Iran and remove all US troops from combat in the area unless Congress authorized further action. Further military action has not been approved by Congress. This differs from the Gulf War and the 2002 Iraq War, both of which eventually obtained congressional approval.
This act marked the first time in American history that both the House and Senate passed the same resolution directing a president to remove forces from ongoing hostilities, despite opposition from staunch Trump supporters like Ricketts and other Nebraska Republicans.
In earlier rounds of voting, Ricketts defended his decision against exercising the War Powers Resolution on a press call, arguing that “the resolution was moot” considering the ceasefire at the time. Now that the ceasefire is “OVER,” in Trump’s own words, Ricketts faces a tough question: Was the ceasefire really the only thing preventing him from calling for an end to conflict?
Some Republican senators who previously opposed limiting Trump’s war powers have since suggested they could support congressional action now that the ceasefire has ended. Whether Pete Ricketts will do the same remains to be seen.
