Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said on Monday that he intends to introduce a resolution under the War Powers Act to prevent U.S. President Donald Trump from carrying out his threat to “bomb the s**t out of Oman.”
Trump made the threat earlier on Monday in an interview with Fox News in reference to the sultanate’s role in U.S. negotiations with Iran.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s**t out of them,” Trump said.
Later in the day, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Oman had not “behaved very well, but we’d handle them very easily, just like we do others.”
Oman and Iran control the territorial waters around the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s de facto closure of the strait has become one of the main issues in its negotiations with the United States, with Iran demanding that it manage the vital energy corridor.
Oman is a close partner of the United States, and the two countries have had military cooperation agreements for decades, including U.S. military access to Omani port facilities.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday that Iran and Oman had reached an agreement for the two countries to manage shipping routes through the strait, which could eventually lead to the levying of tolls over one of the world’s main arteries for oil and natural gas shipping.
Kaine said that Trump’s threat to attack Oman was evidence that the president is “increasingly deranged in his one-man campaign to threaten and initiate wars all over the globe.”
“His threat to waste even more of our dwindling weapons on Oman—a country the United States has a strong diplomatic relationship and a free trade agreement with—makes real adversaries like China and Russia rub their hands with glee,” Kaine said. “I hope to find some Republican colleagues to join with Democrats and check this blindly stumbling power-drunk president from inflicting more damage on the United States and the world.”
Kaine said that he would introduce the resolution as soon as Congress returns from the August recess. Senators are not scheduled to return to Washington until mid-September.
The Virginia senator has previously led Democratic efforts in the Senate to curb Trump’s authority to conduct the war against Iran.
The House and Senate passed a non-binding concurrent resolution in May expressing disapproval of the war in June; the Senate, however, rejected Kaine’s binding joint resolution to the same effect that month. Trump would likely veto any such resolution, making the effort largely symbolic without additional Republican support.
