Sen. Blumenthal ‘Fearful’ Trump Will Put Troops In Iran As Congressional Votes Loom

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said on Tuesday that he was “fearful” that the Trump administration would put “boots on the ground” in Iran as the war the US and Israel launched on Saturday continues to escalate.

“I just want to say that I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground and that troops from the United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have,” Blumenthal told reporters after attending a closed-door briefing with Trump officials.

The senator added that it was still unclear what the US’s goal was in Iran.

“But I also am no more clear on what the priorities are going to be of the administration going forward, whether it is destroying the nuclear capacity of Iran or simply the missiles or regime change or stopping terrorist activities,” he said, adding that the administration must share more information with the American public.

Both President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have not ruled out the idea of sending troops into Iran, and media reports in the weeks leading up to the start of the war said that deploying a team of commandos into the country was under consideration.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said after the briefing that US military operations in Iran sound “quite large,” comments he made after initially defending President Trump’s decision to start the war.

“It sounded very open-ended to me,” Hawley said, according to HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic. “What I took away is, it’s rapidly evolving … the aims are very ambitious.”

Hawley said a day earlier that he wouldn’t support a War Powers Resolution aimed at stopping further US military intervention without congressional authorization, though he said it would be a different story if Trump wanted to send troops into Iran.

NEW: U.S. War Secretary Pete Hegseth says war with Iran could last up to 8 weeks, saying U.S. and Israel expect to achieve “uncontested airspace” over the country “in under a week” and unleash “death and destruction from the sky all day long.”

“You can say four weeks, but it… pic.twitter.com/BOcdDb0raf

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) March 4, 2026

The Senate could vote on a War Powers Resolution introduced by Sen. Tim Kaune (D-VA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) as soon as Wednesday. The House is also set to vote this week on a similar resolution backed by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY).