Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pushed back on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s description of the attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and emphasized that the U.S. should not act as Saudi Arabia’s military in response.
Pompeo attributed the attack to Iran and called it an “act of war.” Menendez was asked if he would support military action against Iran in response to the attack.
“When the secretary of State and the president say it’s an act of war — against whom? It may have been such an act against the Saudi Kingdom but not against the United States. We have no NATO relationship with the Saudis. We don’t have a bilateral security agreement,” Menendez said before speaking at the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts Noche de Gala Dinner on Wednesday evening.
“So the last thing we need to do is be engaged and now acting as Saudi Arabia’s military. This is a time to galvanize the world against Iran and we should be doing that at the U.N. at the Security Council and whatever the proofs that we supposedly have, we should exhibit them. And if we have them and we exhibit them than we can galvanize the world, which we haven’t been able to do right now,” he added.
Menendez continued, “I think that if the administration is considering, any, any form of military action they have to come to Congress, they have to justify it and they have to get an authorization for the use of military force.”
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