EXCLUSIVE: Top congressional Iran hawks were about to depart for the U.S. from the Middle East on Wednesday, when two members of the delegation spoke to Fox News Digital about what they were seeing on the ground.
Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., said they visited Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and were in the United Arab Emirates as of Tuesday, meeting with leaders and discussing the armed conflict between Israel and Iran.
“Over the course of the last week, we have seen just a dramatic escalation, particularly by Iran threatening the region,” he said, adding that he is also spearheading the Iranian Maximum Pressure Campaign Act, which comprises 47 pieces that give President Donald Trump leverage over Iranian “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
Nunn, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force – who conducted intel-reconnaissance missions off Russia and China – said Gen. Erik “Gorilla” Kurilla has his “full support” after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicated Tuesday he would defer to the CENTCOM commander on Iranian strategy.
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“[Kurilla] has been very clear here that Iran needs to take the offramp from its nuclear enrichment program. In fact, he was one of the ones that highlighted here the real threat coming from a nuclear Iran, both to its neighbor Israel, and other nations across the Middle East. The United States has a very important role to play here in deterrence,” he said.
Arab allies like the UAE recognize that Iran presents the greatest “existential threat” to peace in the Middle East, Nunn said, adding that as a veteran of the War on Terror, he doesn’t want to see U.S. service members return to combat in the region.
Forty thousand troops, however, are stationed in non-combat roles in the region, and are in range of Iranian weapons if Tehran escalates.
Nunn warned that the porous southern border has also opened up the likelihood that Iranian proxies are already inside the U.S., and cited reports Tehran was connected in some way to the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania.
He and Panetta, son of former CIA Director Leon Panetta, said the reason they came together in a bipartisan showing to Mideast leaders was that while they may not disagree politically on every issue, Congress is united with Mideast allies.
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“There’s a real opportunity here for our Arab partners and Israel to stand together in deterring Iran. The U.S. should not be the policeman for the world. There are certain capabilities that only the United States can provide in this scenario. That includes deep penetration strikes to eliminate the nuclear reactor and the enrichment program that Iran’s produced. But ultimately, this is also up to the Iranian people to decide what they want for their future.”
Panetta said he hopes the trip helped lay an even stronger basis for other nations to align with the Abraham Accords forged by Trump in his first term.
“The conflict between Israel and Iran broke out on Thursday, before the Friday we were to get here. And so that sort of changed a few things and unfortunately prevented us from going into Israel. However, we were able to have very substantive meetings with some of the leadership in Saudi Arabia, in Bahrain, and here in the United Arab Emirates before we have to fly out tonight,” Panetta said.
“And what we heard consistently is — none of them want a nuclear-armed Iran.”
Like Nunn, Panetta also does not want boots on the ground, saying that when or if Tehran’s government falls or surrenders, as Trump wants, the change must come “from within.”
Members of both parties aren’t looking to trigger regime change through force, he said, but they do want to see Tehran’s nuclear ambitions defeated.
And, when it comes to concerns about stability – after seeing Iraq and Libya falter after strongmen were ousted – it will be up to the Iranian people at that point how to proceed, the lawmakers said.
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“The purpose of Israel’s bombing, at least from what we’ve heard, was to destroy their nuclear capabilities. It was not for regime change,” Panetta said.
“However, if the people see this as an opportunity, then that’s something that basically, I think now more than ever, would be the right time for the people of Iran to rise up.”
Given the rare bipartisan agreement on the Iran issue in an otherwise fractured political environment, the Democrat added that he will always work with anyone to support both his constituents, and whoever, including Trump, wants to have substantive discussions to solve pressing problems like Iran’s nuclear capabilities, “forever wars,” and that Israel retains the right to defend itself.
“[Those] are bipartisan issues that I think we can work together on,” Panetta said.