Southern Arizona lawmakers react to U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran - AZPM News

Southern Arizona’s representatives in Congress had diverging reactions to U.S. military actions against Iran over the weekend.

Four U.S. soldiers have died in retaliatory attacks since the U.S. and Israel began airstrikes against Iran on Saturday. At a press conference on Monday, President Donald Trump said the war’s goal was to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities and navy, while preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Military action against Iran has not received authorization from Congress.

Southern Arizona lawmakers reacted largely — but not entirely — along party lines.

Speaking on NBC on Sunday, Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat, said the Trump administration lacked a clear strategy for achieving its goals in Iran. Still, he praised the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in an Israeli strike.

“It’s a good thing that the Supreme Leader is gone, and some of the folks around him,” Kelly said on Meet the Press.

Kelly said that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon, but argued that does not justify current strikes.

“This week, Iran was not an imminent threat to the homeland,” he said.

The Senate will likely vote later this week on a joint resolution sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine that would direct the president to stop attacks against Iran unless they get authorized by Congress. During his NBC interview, Kelly did not say he’d vote for the resolution, and said he wanted to speak with the White House first. But later that day, he announced that he would vote for it.

“It’s clear that Trump has no plan to avoid escalation into a wider conflict that puts more servicemembers in harm’s way,” he explained his decision in a post on X.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, also a Democrat, echoed many of Kelly’s criticisms of Trump’s actions but criticized the war more fundamentally.

“It’s not (in) our interest to go to war, maybe it’s in the interest of the Gulf Coast countries, maybe it’s in the interest of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel,” he said on ABC on Saturday. “But it does not mean we need to be expending our own energy, our own blood, for those countries.”

Kelly and Gallego are both military veterans. Gallego served in the Iraq War in a unit that saw high casualties.

“There is nothing worse than seeing your friends die for a cause that isn’t in the national interest in this country,” Gallego said on CNN on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican, praised the U.S. attacks in a statement posted to social media.

“Today’s action by President Trump sends a clear message: the Iranian regime’s aggression and destabilizing threats will not go unanswered. For decades, the Iranian regime has funded terror, attacked our allies, and threatened American servicemembers. President Trump and his administration have continually been seeking peace, but Iran chose escalation,” he wrote on X.

Echoing other Republicans, Ciscomani called on Kelly and Gallego to end the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown, which began in February after Democrats refused to send new regular funding to the agency without ICE reforms.

“Our national defense and counterterrorism efforts depend on it,” Ciscomani wrote on X.

Republican Rep. Eli Crane also called for ending the DHS shutdown, but expressed more reservations about military operations against Iran.

“We often have this flippant attitude that, ‘Well, we’ve done our part, we’ve taken out the Ayatollah, we’ve damaged the military infrastructure there, so Iranians, just go do your thing,’” Crane said on the Charlie Kirk Show on Monday.

Crane is a former Navy SEAL who has served with the elite SEAL Team 3 unit.

“Toppling of a regime isn’t the hard part, it’s what comes next,” he said.

Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva called U.S. attacks “completely reckless” and “blatantly unconstitutional” in a social media post.

“Trump campaigned on ending forever wars. He lied. Just one year into his second term, he has already invaded Venezuela and now ignited a major conflict in the Middle East - making the world less safe,” she wrote on X.

Several polls have shown relatively low levels of support for attacking Iran. A CNN poll found 59% of respondents against recent attacks. Only one in four respondents supported the strikes in a Reuters poll.

A University of Maryland poll found that support for the strikes was at 21%, with only 40% approval among Republicans, and with 30% of all respondents stating they don’t know whether they support the attacks.

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