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Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., choked up on the Senate floor as he pointed to a bracelet honoring a fallen friend he said was “cut in half” by an Iranian bomb, turning a Democratic-led push to rein in President Donald Trump’s war powers into an emotional warning about the cost of failing to confront Tehran.
The Montana Republican and combat veteran delivered the fiery remarks in opposition to an Iran War Powers Resolution that would have forced the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress explicitly authorized the mission. The Senate rejected an effort to advance the measure Thursday in a 47-49 vote, but not before Sheehy accused critics of ignoring decades of Iranian-backed attacks on Americans.
“We didn’t start this war, we did not. But, we will finish it,” Sheehy said from the Senate floor. “And forever wars are not popular with anybody these days. Both sides of [the aisle] love to attack our forever wars. And I can promise you, being someone overseas wearing the uniform, when you’re fighting for your country, you don’t care what party’s in office.”
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Sheehy argued Democrats were right to call the conflict a “war of choice,” but said the choice was made by Iran’s regime decades ago — not by Trump.
“This is a war of choice. The Democrats are correct,” Sheehy said. “It’s a war of choice that was begun by a radical, lunatic band of terrorists that took over a beautiful nation 47 years ago.”
The former Navy SEAL then ticked through decades of attacks he tied to Iran and its proxies, invoking the 1983 Marine barracks bombing, the USS Cole, the Achille Lauro and terrorist groups including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
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“This regime that we are fighting does not care about our partisan politics,” Sheehy said. “They don’t care who you voted for, who you pray to, or where you live. They want to kill all of us. And they don’t just say it, they actually do it. And they’ve been doing it for 47 years.”
Sheehy also invoked William Buckley, whom he described as “an American military officer” who was abducted and tortured in the 1980s.
“William Buckley was abducted in 1985,” Sheehy said. “He was skinned alive on camera by the Iranians.”
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The senator concluded by describing Iran’s ongoing retaliatory attacks as “the flailing’s of a nation in collapse” not strength, citing what he called “an occasional missile strike” on commercial boats and U.S. military members in the Middle East. Meanwhile he encouraged his congressional colleagues to “think about the people who are deployed right now standing on that wall with a loaded weapon who volunteered to defend our country and our way of life” in what Sheehy described as a “just war.”
“Last time I checked, we wiped these bastards out … because they deserve it,” Sheehy said. “We did not start a war with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), they started it with us 47 years ago and their attacks have gone unanswered for half a century. It is time to fix this problem and make sure another generation of Americans does not have to fight this murderous, savage adversary.”
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