A Senate Republican warned Thursday that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s primary focus is shedding American blood as U.S.-Iran relations continue to simmer. <\/p>\n
‘The ayatollah not only thinks that I’m going to hell because I don’t agree with his religion \u2014 he wants to kill me,’ Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said on the Senate floor Thursday.<\/p>\n
‘He wants to kill Americans and the Israelis and anybody who does not believe in his jihad and drink our blood out of a boot,’ Kennedy continued. ‘And he’s acted on that, and that’s not acceptable.’<\/p>\n
Kennedy\u2019s message comes as tensions with Iran are escalating. At the core of the issue is Iran\u2019s capability and Khamenei\u2019s desire to build a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump gave the country\u2019s leadership roughly 10 to 15 days to reach a nuclear agreement and warned that the inability to strike a deal could lead to U.S. military action in the region.<\/p>\n
He renewed that edict during his State of the Union address earlier this week.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
‘I will never allow the world\u2019s number one sponsor of terror \u2026 to have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said.<\/p>\n
Kennedy cautioned that if the Trump administration were to broker a deal, it would need to have guardrails.<\/p>\n
‘If we make a deal with Iran, let’s make sure we have a protocol to enforce it because, in my experience in watching the Ayatollah through the years, I wouldn’t trust this man if he was three days dead,’ he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Lawmakers are wrestling with the exact nature of what a strike could look like and whether Congress should weigh in before Trump makes a decision.<\/p>\n
Senators Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., expect that their Iran war powers resolution will hit the Senate floor next week, which would curb Trump’s ability to strike the country without Congress’ approval.<\/p>\n
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the most important aspect of the Iran negotiations was ‘to prevent them from having nuclear capability.’<\/p>\n
‘But there are also other threats that they represent in the region, and we have a big presence in that region, as you know. So, I think they’re looking at and working through what the options might be,’ Thune said. <\/p>\n
‘In my view, if you’re going to do something there, you better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change.’<\/p>\n