This war does not make American citizens safer! It violates the 250-year-old words of the Constitution and disregards the sanctity of human life. We must reject any narrative claiming that our safety and freedom depends on the oppression of any peoples, be they immigrants, asylum seekers or the citizens of Iran.

Considering the current president’s campaign promise to avoid any foreign wars, it is clear he misled his supporters, betrayed their trust and recklessly followed Netanyahu’s murderous lead into an illegal, immoral and unilateral war against Iran.

The Trump administration’s actions are part of a long-standing pattern of anti-Muslim policies rooted in Christian nationalist ideology. Pete Hegseth continues the narrative that God is his savior, and that the U.S. is fighting a “Holy War” yet there is nothing Christian or humane about the hatred he portrays in pursuing the destruction of the Iranian people.

Negotiations were ongoing but ignored in favor of the presidents’ genocidal threats and determination to use military force instead of diplomacy; a concept that escapes him.

Matthew D. Taylor, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University who studies religious extremism said “Hegseth’s rhetoric and leadership can only inflame and reinforce the fears and deep animosity that the regime in Iran has towards the United States.”

This war does not make American citizens safer! It violates the 250-year-old words of the Constitution and disregards the sanctity of human life. We must reject any narrative claiming that our safety and freedom depends on the oppression of any peoples, be they immigrants, asylum seekers or the citizens of Iran.

The goal of the administration is to make us feel helpless and powerless, yet that power belongs to us and we must continue to speak out against this brutality. We can put pressure on our representatives, by calling their offices, writing emails and demanding they support a war powers resolution to exert Congress’s constitutional authority over military conflict. Their continued silence equals complicity. Something to remember when it’s time to vote in the midterm elections.