House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi claimed that President Donald Trump’s decision to strike three Iranian nuclear weapons facilities without congressional approval was “unconstitutional,” despite previously saying that a similar strike in Libya by then-President Barack Obama was proper.
Earlier this week, following the strikes, Trump addressed the nation with an update on the situation and noted that America was not “at war” with the Iranians.
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of Terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success! Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump said.
He explicitly named Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan as the targeted sites, stating that a “full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow,” which was buried hundreds of feet inside a mountain.
But Pelosi, who has been a bitter Democratic partisan throughout Trump’s time in office, issued a statement condemning the action.
“Tonight, the president ignored the Constitution by unilaterally engaging our military without Congressional authorization. I join my colleagues in demanding answers from the administration on this operation which endangers American lives and risks further escalation and dangerous destabilization of the region,” she said immediately after the president’s announcement.
Iran and Israel agreed to a cease-fire on Tuesday, however.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries also accused President Trump of “mislead[ing] the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force, and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East.”
The White House said Tuesday that top congressional leaders were notified in advance of the strikes, but added that Jeffries refused to answer his phone and that he was summarily briefed afterward.
In 2011, when Obama struck Libya without congressional approval, Pelosi sang a different tune, telling reporters he didn’t need it.
Trump continued to explain his motivations for striking now after giving the Iranians 60 days to make a deal that involved voluntarily surrendering their nuclear weapons program.
“For 40 years, Iran has been saying death to America, death to Israel,” Trump stated. “We lost over a thousand people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of the hate in particular. So many were killed by their General. The money? I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue,” he said.
Earlier this week, Iran’s supreme leader was reportedly “cowering” somewhere in a bunker beneath Tehran, preparing for his inevitable death and planning to select a successor, according to government insiders.
Two top Iranian officials told The Atlantic that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s days are short, and they may not wait for him to die of natural causes before removing him. Khamenei faces the most critical leadership test of his career after the United States destroyed three of the country’s main nuclear enrichment sites on Sunday.
“Everybody knows Khamenei’s days are numbered,” claimed one official. “Even if he stays in office, he won’t have actual power.”
The Iranian supreme leader last addressed the country a week ago from a secret underground bunker where he was hunkered down in anticipation of a U.S. strike. Trump previously stated that he would decide “within two weeks” whether to strike Iran, a feint that White House officials say was intended to conceal the fact that he had already decided.
