Sara Firth

uh foreign intervention again starting so you know bombs from above and then they've got the repression from within to deal with that is a terrible position uh for ordinary Iranians to be in and once again with project freedom again it's a humanitarian operation uh it's trying to open the Strait of Hormuz big question mark over whether

you know, shipping companies are going to feel confident enough with, given the current back and forth of language between Iran and from the president.

But, you know, both the seafarers who are stuck in this and ordinary Iranians, the millions in the country who are sort of trapped between these two powers fighting out right now, it's a very, very difficult situation.

Worried, yes.

And I think there was, you know, when the deadline was coming up and before Congress went to recess, you heard from one of the Republican lawmakers who essentially said, look, it shouldn't be a controversial statement to say at the point that has been legally decided, which is the 60 day mark, if hostilities resume.

um it has to be put to a democratic vote the american people get a say as to whether or not they send their u.s um service men and women into combat so that was from a republican lawmaker um and a number of republicans have come out you know expressing

what we're seeing presented in the polling, which is that the American people don't find this conflict popular.

But far more importantly, I think, is that issue, you know, the congressional clock, the war resolutions, war power resolutions was put in place

after very, very hard lessons learned from Vietnam.

And, you know, the Defense Secretary, Claire, and the President, they constantly are bringing up comparisons to Iraq and Vietnam, seemingly flattering their conflicts in Iran and trying to present it as, you know, something that's far more organized, will be far more short-lived.

I think that's a very unfortunate comparison.

And there are a lot of analysts here in the US right now that are looking at what happened in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

You know, the shock and awe of the first few weeks.

We've seen a similar sense, sort of big military announcements, big military actions before the ceasefire.

Now with...

Project Freedom, there is real criticism that the United States is not just getting bogged down in another long war without an end in sight and without clear objectives, but also without congressional oversight.