Can Idaho’s Republican delegation keep us out of war? Will it even try?

Now more than ever, we need our Republican congressional delegation to protect American interests and keep us out of war with Iran. This is not a game, not brinksmanship, not about the election or Trump derangement syndrome, as some like to joke about anytime there is a disagreement with something our president says or does.

Take, for example, the president’s decision last month to withdraw troops from Syria, abandoning our Kurdish allies in the region after a Sunday afternoon phone call with the Turkish president. Anyone who dared question that move as unmoored from a cohesive foreign policy was derided simply as anti-Trump. “Don’t you see?” We were told. “We’re trying time get out of these endless wars in the Middle East,” we were told.

Now, just weeks later, the United States kills Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone attack, an action that by all accounts is going to mire us deeper into Middle East conflict, possibly war. If this is a cohesive foreign policy, forgive us for our inability to follow along.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed an “imminent threat” against American lives forced President Donald Trump to make the decision to kill Soleimani. There are serious doubts raised about whether killing Soleimani would stop such an attack, as Iran barely missed a beat, with a replacement general vowing revenge.

Given the reaction to the killing, claims of de-escalation seem to be, at the very least, a serious miscalculation. The situation in the Middle East is anything but de-escalated, as Iran proved Tuesday night when it struck back at the United States by firing a series of ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq housing U.S. troops.

There was no immediate word on injuries.

U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this after Trump ordered the attack on Soleimani: “(Trump) did this not to start a war, but to stop a war. And he means it. He hopes the Iranians will take a look at this and say, ‘You know what, we don’t want to mess with this guy.’”

Clearly, this is impractical thinking.

Risch paints Trump as a tough guy who is scaring the Iranians into submission, when in fact the exact opposite is true. As head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he should have a huge investment in making sure that the U.S. has a thoughtful, strategic foreign policy. Instead, it has an unhinged president who thinks tweeting fulfills his duty to the Constitution and changes his mind about overseas allies and adversaries on an almost daily basis.

The president’s tweets first included threats that he would target cultural sites in Iran if it attacked U.S. interests, which at worst is a war crime and at best an immoral thing to do. The Pentagon responded that the United States would not do that, and the president responded with another tweet backing off the threat.

This would be comical if it weren’t so deadly serious.

These are times for serious people.

This is not a partisan issue, and opposing an obviously incoherent and dangerous foreign policy strategy should not be dismissed merely as partisanship. Parties need not align precisely when your president has taken action without reasonable consultation and is putting the lives of many Americans at risk.

In the end, Idaho’s delegation is largely made up of reasonable men at their core. And let’s get real: No one wants a war on the scale this could become.

Idaho’s Sens. Risch and Mike Crapo and Reps. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher enjoy safe seats in red Idaho. They can afford to stand up for what’s right and oppose a war with Iran. In fact, in our system of checks and balances, it is their obligation to decide whether we enter into a war.