Democratic Senator Chris Murphy was very skeptical about the statements made by Trump and the US government. “It’s no secret that this US government has no plan for the chaos that is currently taking place in the Middle East,” he told CBS. “So we won’t get democracy. We’ll get even worse Iranian leadership.”
Chris Coons, also a Democrat, told CNN that he could not imagine that there would be a change in Iran as a result of the current offensive. “I don’t know of any example in modern history where regime change was achieved through air strikes alone.”
Numerous security and military experts also expressed similar views. Even after the death of the political and spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the mullahs’ regime will do everything to ensure its survival. “There are many accomplices and defenders of the regime, led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its subordinate paramilitary Basij group, who are ensuring that any domestic uprisings are suppressed throughout the country and that they are fighting for the continued existence of the regime,” says Middle East expert Amin Saikal from the University of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
“Bombs can destroy infrastructure. They can weaken capabilities and eliminate leaders. But they do not create organized political alternatives. The Iranian population is unarmed, fragmented and faces one of the most developed security apparatuses in the region,” writes renowned Middle East analyst Ali Vaez for the political magazine Foreign Affairs.
Several Democrats also said the attack on Iran was illegal because, according to the Constitution, only Congress has the right to declare war. Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia said the Trump administration had provided no evidence of an imminent threat from Iran. “I have not seen any information that Iran was about to launch a preemptive strike against the United States,” Warner told CNN.
