WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Monday wrote a Substack post outlining eight ideas that should inform how the American public thinks about the Trump administration’s strikes against Iran and President Trump’s refusal to learn the lessons of America’s previous military misadventures in the Middle East.

“America’s addiction to military intervention in the Middle East is a stubborn habit to break for our nation, and it’s heartbreaking,” Murphy wrote. “It’s heartbreaking mostly because we have continuous evidence that believing we can change minds or political realities in this complicated region by brute military force is folly.”

Murphy explained the American people are not the ones pushing for endless conflict:  “But, we keep going to war, despite the evidence telling us “hell no,” because of a powerful but wrongheaded group of warmongers and cheerleaders in Washington: hawkish politicians; profit-obsessed weapons sellers; and capable but naively optimistic military planners.

He laid out various potentially dangerous consequences of Trump’s decision to strike Iran: “The worst consequence, of course, is a full-blown war in the region that draws in the United States…If Iran kills American troops, the conflict could spiral and America would be back at war in the Middle East…Another potentially dangerous consequence would be the fall of the regime in Tehran. The Supreme Leader is a murderous tyrant who wants Israel wiped off the map and has killed hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq. Even if he were pushed out internally, he could be replaced by someone even more hardline and bent on revenge, willing to order terrorist attacks all over the globe. A third scenario, a civil war in which Iran descends into chaos, could be even worse for the United States and the region…”

Murphy argued diplomacy, not military intervention, is the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon: “You cannot bomb knowledge out of existence. Iran knows how to make a nuclear bomb…And bombing their facilities just destroys their equipment; it does not eliminate their knowledge… If Iran makes the decision to build a weapon, and they have a country like Russia helping them, they could easily get a weapon in a dangerously short amount of time…If America hadn’t already successfully negotiated and implemented an agreement with Iran to stop them from obtaining a nuclear weapon, maybe the military option would look more reasonable. Yes, we don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, but from 2014-2107, Iran’s advanced nuclear research program was dismantled, and we had inspectors crawling all over the country ensuring their compliance. Trump’s national security advisors urged him to stay in the deal – it was working! – but he disastrously withdrew.”

Murphy concluded: “This is a moment where Congress needs to step in. This week, we are likely to take a vote that makes it crystal clear President Trump does not have the authorization for these strikes or a broader war with Iran. This is also a moment for the American people to stand up and say we do not want another war in the Middle East. In the last twenty years, we have seen the untold damage done - the lives lost, the billions of dollars wasted, and our reputation squandered - and we won’t allow Trump to take us down that path again.”

Murphy released a statement Saturday night following the strikes.