Helena Humphrey

Look at the hostage crisis in 1979 when Americans were among those who

who were held hostage for over 400 days, as his reasoning.

I mean, we're not there yet, but Donald Trump has been calling on Iranians themselves to rise up.

He's been calling on the military to lay down their weapons.

Essentially, he's saying, do it yourselves, no boots on the ground from the US side.

But certainly we know that that will be extremely challenging.

You've got elements of the regime which are still there.

And I think in the meantime, there's the question, will the US end up embroiled in something which is far messier in the wider Middle East?

Not to mention the risks that we know that can come with a power vacuum.

You know, when you think

Iraq, as you say, Libya, Syria.

So if past is prologue here, certainly this is a gamble from the US president.

Let me just run you through what some of the lawmakers have had to say. Starting off with Lindsey Graham. He is a Republican senator. He is an ally of Donald Trump. And essentially his message, which he's posted on X, is that he believes that this is an opportunity to reshape the Middle East. He says that he expects this campaign to be a violent one, but ultimately he expects it to be

You can compare and contrast that with what we've heard from another Republican, a congressman Thomas Massey, who is a critic of Donald Trump. And he has called this an act of war unauthorized by Congress. Certainly there had not been a congressional vote on any of these strikes. Just some other reaction to bring you now. Ro Khanna, he is a democratic lawmaker and he has called for a vote on Monday. He said that lawmakers...

must come to Washington, they must vote on this, they must put their names on the records with regards to where they stand on these strikes. And then we've also heard from the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that is Mark Warner, and essentially what his message has been...

In a statement he says that we have heard claims of urgency of American intelligence before, clearly referencing previous wars, Iraq for example being one of them, and saying that the president must answer questions with regards to the objective here. Basically saying if President Trump can come out and put a video on his social media platform, an eight minute video in which he has warned that there could be

American casualties. That justification needs to be there. Now, certainly we know that Donald Trump has spoken not just about a failure of a nuclear deal, but he has also spoken about ending what he calls a campaign of bloodshed against Americans. But in terms of that objective, he also spoke to the Iranian people, didn't he? He said, you know, stay inside for the time being, but when it is safe to do so, come out, rise up, topple

The Iranian regime. And I think the greater backdrop to all of this is what we had seen in recent weeks, when we had seen that brutal crackdown on protesters in Iran. And Donald Trump had said to them, help is on the way, prompting many people to ask in recent weeks, well, where is that help? Donald Trump clearly there speaking to the Iranians as well, saying, this will be your opportunity.

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I think it certainly will be.