On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) stated that “Iran is not in control of the skies, because of the Israeli strikes last year, anything above 10,000 feet, Iran really has no domain awareness and no ability to impede, which means that the United States military absolutely can work its will through aerial strikes. And, strategically, it would be sound to do so to impair any nuclear or ballistic missile development.” And now would be the best time for President Donald Trump to get a narrow authorization for the use of force.
Auchincloss said, “I think there [are] three security realities that are defining this situation right now, Anderson: The first is that Iran is in control on the ground, its interior, its police, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, they have taken back control from the protests, and it does not look like regime change is imminent organically. Number two, though, is, Iran is not in control of the skies, because of the Israeli strikes last year, anything above 10,000 feet, Iran really has no domain awareness and no ability to impede, which means that the United States military absolutely can work its will through aerial strikes. And, strategically, it would be sound to do so to impair any nuclear or ballistic missile development. And then the final reality is that the ayatollah himself is old and sick and isolated. He’s going to die soon.”
He continued, “So this would be the ideal time for Donald Trump to actually work some statesmanship, come to Congress, ask for a very tightly-scoped authorization for the use of military force, because the aerial strikes would be illegal otherwise, but also ask for Congress to lay out what would allow Iran to rejoin the community of nations in the Middle East when the ayatollah dies and a succession plan takes place. That way, we can actually lay the groundwork for a succession after the ayatollah’s death where moderates have a chance to campaign and win, to take that mantle.”
He further stated, “What these military strikes would do would be really to continue to impair nuclear weapon development. There are signals that Iran is trying to restart at least one of those plants that was demolished, and, probably more importantly, actually, would degrade their ballistic missile development. Their ballistic missiles are a more imminent threat to Israel and to Arab states than even their nuclear weapon program, because those ballistic missiles, while most of them are shot down by Iron Dome and air defenses in the region, not all of them are, and they do significant damage.”
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