Ro Khanna Urges Fellow Democrats to Stop Trying to Out Hawk Trump on Iran War

Congressman Ro Khanna on Tuesday suggested Democratic voters who believe the party lacks "principles," as a number of respondents said in a new poll, have understandable questions about what Democrats stands for, as he denounced recent comments from several lawmakers who have attacked President Donald Trump for not being hawkish enough when it comes to the war he started in Iran.

"People want a Democratic Party that's going to stand for things, that stands as the party that's anti-war," Khanna told Chris Hayes on MS NOW.

“And we should be the party that says, ‘Donald Trump, end this war, we’re going to support the negotiation’—and then we’re going to not get into these wars in the future,” he added.

Khanna accused his colleagues of sending the message: “Donald Trump, go blow up more things! Why aren’t you destroying more of Iran?”

“I’m not one of those Democrats,” said the congressman, who introduced a war powers resolution with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to stop Trump from launching unauthorized strikes against Iran. “I’m one of the people saying, ‘Yes, let’s get a negotiated settlement. Let’s work toward ending this war.’”

“The Democrats should be for ending this war and be against more of these foreign interventions,” said Khanna. “The last thing we want is to goad Donald Trump into getting us into more conflict there.”

As examples of what Khanna is talking about, influential Democrats including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) have spent the last several days provoking the president over Iran, and by complaining that the deal to end the war isn't tough enough on the country, which the US and Israel began preemptively attacking in February in violation of international law.

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Iran since the war started, while Israel has expanded hostilities to Lebanon, killing more than 3,000 people. The casualties in Iran have included about 150 people, mostly children, who were killed in an attack on a girls' school when the war started; Amnesty International has called for the US to be held to account for the bombing. A number of other schools have also been attacked, as well as medical facilities.

Despite the carnage—as well as the economic impact of war, which Iran swiftly responded to by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route, and sending oil prices skyrocketing—Booker on Sunday debuted what Just Foreign Policy executive director Erik Sperling called "Democrat neocon talking points" regarding reports of an impending peace deal.

The senator said reports of the deal—including the reopening of the strait, a lift of US sanctions allowing Iran to sell oil freely, and an apparent agreement to hold formal talks on Iran's nuclear program later—had him "outraged."

"The president said he went into this to deal with the nuclear program. This does not deal with that," said Booker, adding that the easing of sanctions of Iran would allow them to get "billions more" dollars.

"Giving Iran more money, as he has said, will allow them to do things like fuel their terrorist proxies," the senator added.

His comments were followed by Wasserman Schultz's interview on the same network Tuesday, when she said she was "concerned and frustrated over, again, another potential deal, a negotiation for a negotiation, where we're going to unfreeze Iranian assets" and allowing Iran to "rebuild their ballistic missile program."

Booker has taken more than $800,000 from pro-Israel groups including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, while Wasserman Schultz has taken more than $1.4 million.

Murphy also condemned the reported deal on social media Sunday, saying that Trump "hasn’t accomplished ANY of his constantly shifting goals."

"Iran still has its ballistic missile and drone program," he said. "They still have a navy that can close the strait. A hardline regime is still in charge."

Jeet Heer of The Nation said that because the war on Iran "is immensely unpopular... prominent Democrats want to outflank Trump by being more hawkish."

Historian and analyst Stephen Wertheim credited Khanna with articulating "what the vast majority of Democrats believe, but too few of their leaders say and mean."

A March poll by Pew Research Center found that nearly 90% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the Trump administration had made the wrong decision going to war against Iran.

Khanna also spoke to Fox News over the weekend, saying he would support all efforts by Trump to negotiate a peace deal with Iran and expressing approval of the president's apparent rejection of the "Lindsay Graham wing of the party," referring to the South Carolina Republican, an outspoken advocate for military intervention in Iran and elsewhere.

Khanna's comments, said Sperling, represented "what decent, pro-diplomacy messaging looks like."