While the Trump administration has pursued talks with Iran, many Democratic Party leaders have blasted the basis for the current negotiations. “The doubletalk coming from many congressional Democrats in response to President Trump’s peace initiative with Iran has been a political wonder to behold,” Norman Solomon wrote in The Hill today. “While correctly declaring that Trump should not have started the war, they’ve routinely gone on to condemn the memorandum of understanding that offers a process to end it.”
The article — headlined “Congressional Democrats are playing ‘war party’ on Iran. It will backfire on them.” — says that some Democrats in Congress “have gone over the top while taking aim at the set of sensible steps outlined in the memorandum of understanding.” For example, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) denounced what he called “unconditional surrender,” Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) slammed it as “a dangerous giveaway” and Sen. Adam Schiff (Calif.) said that it is “hard to imagine a more thorough capitulation,” while Rep. Jake Auchincloss (Mass.) described the memorandum as “the most humiliating national security episode since the British burned the White House.”
Solomon wrote: “When Democrats claim that the memorandum of understanding amounts to surrender, they are playing with fire. Trump is already abruptly swerving between rational overtures for diplomatic dialogue and new bombastic threats. It might seem clever to bait the president by casting him as submissive to Iran, but goading him to prove the opposite is just plain irresponsible. All of this is bad news for a world beset with the grim impacts of war, from carnage and refugee crises to spiking energy prices, trade disruption and environmental damage.”
Noting that both of Trump’s successful runs for president were aided by voter discontent with Democratic leaders’ support for war, Solomon added: “If Democrats are seen as trying to derail a Trump peace deal, they will enable him and Vice President JD Vance to portray the Democratic Party as the party of war, which is hardly good for electoral prospects…. Looking ahead, attempts to out-hawk Republicans are very likely to be losing propositions for Democrats. As in 2016 and again in 2024, a standard-bearer perceived as pro-war is just the ticket for depressing voter turnout that the party needs from its base.”
Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
NORMAN SOLOMON, [email protected]
Solomon’s latest books are War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine and The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy.