An Open Letter to Senator Andy Kim

Your March 1st MSNBC op-ed deserves a direct response — not because your concerns about congressional war powers are without merit, but because the piece crosses from legitimate policy debate into reflexive partisan opposition dressed up as national security expertise.

Let’s start with what we agree on. You write that “the Iranian regime poses a substantial threat to the Middle East and to US interests” and that “Iranian influence must be confronted and checked.” Good. But then you oppose the one action that has meaningfully set back Iran’s nuclear program, offering diplomacy as the alternative — the same diplomacy that failed for two decades while Iran steadily advanced toward a nuclear weapon. That’s not a strategy. That’s a talking point.

You frame this as “a war of choice.” That framing deserves scrutiny. Iran seized the US embassy in 1979. Iranian proxies killed hundreds of American service members in Beirut in 1983. Iran supplied the roadside bombs that killed and maimed over a thousand American troops in Iraq. The regime plotted to assassinate former senior U.S. officials on American soil — including, according to a 2024 Politico report,........

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