Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the double-Harvard graduate who is a U.S. Army combat veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, has always been blisteringly hawkish on the issue of Iran. Famously, Cotton led in March 2015 a letter sent, on behalf of 47 total U.S. senators, to the terrorist-supporting ruling mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Quite presciently, the letter noted how the Iran nuclear deal, structured as it was as an “executive agreement,” could easily be altered or terminated in the future.
“The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time,” the letter read. “We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress,” it concluded.
Later in 2015, after the U.S. entered into the Iran nuclear deal, Cotton and fellow Iran hawk then-Congressman (and current Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo (R-KS) stunningly announced that they had taken it upon themselves to discover “two secret side deals to the nuclear agreement with Iran that [were] not [meant to] be shared with other nations, with Congress, or with the U.S. public.” At the time, the joint Cotton/Pompeo press release said, in relevant part:
According to the IAEA, the Iran agreement negotiators, including the Obama administration, agreed that the IAEA and Iran would forge separate arrangements to govern the inspection of the Parchin military complex — one of the most secretive military facilities in Iran — and how Iran would satisfy the IAEA’s outstanding questions regarding past weaponization work. Both arrangements will not be vetted by any organization other than Iran and the IAEA, and will not be released even to the nations that negotiated the JCPOA [Iran nuclear agreement]. This means that the secret arrangements have not been released for public scrutiny and have not been submitted to Congress as part of its legislatively mandated review of the Iran deal.
Now, nearly four years later and with the Trump administration saber-rattling with the Iranian mullocracy, Cotton is showcasing his staunch confidence as to how quickly a prospective military conflict between the U.S. and Iran would end. Specifically, Cotton told host Margaret Hoover on the “Firing Line” program that it would take precisely two military strikes to definitively defeat Iran in war.
“Firing Line” tweeted: “Senator [Tom Cotton] tells Firing Line if it comes to war with Iran, he is confident the United States would win, and would win swiftly. ‘Two strikes, the first strike and the last strike,’ says the Senator.”
More from Fox News:
The senator went on to say that the all-out war with Iran would be justified if the regime “struck out militarily against us or against our allies in the region, then I would certainly expect a devastating response against Iran.”
But he insisted that he doesn’t advocate taking a military action against the Middle Eastern country, saying, “I’m simply delivering the message that if Iran were to attack the United States it would be a grave miscalculation on their part and there would be a furious response.”
The State Department ordered Wednesday all non-emergency personnel at the U.S. Embassy and consulate in Iraq to leave the country amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran.