Civil war on Capitol Hill: US lawmakers explode as Iran peace talks collapse into partisan chaos

WASHINGTON, DC: The failure of marathon peace negotiations in Pakistan has ignited a political firestorm in Washington, as Capitol Hill splits violently over the next phase of the US war with Iran.

On Sunday, April 12, during a series of television appearances, leading Republicans issued demands for President Donald J Trump to "defang" the Iranian regime through elite military strikes, while top Democrats warned that resuming full-scale hostilities would be "very, very dangerous" for American troops and the national economy.

The collapse of the Islamabad summit has effectively put the two-week ceasefire into a "game of chicken," according to former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

While the president has already ordered a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to stop the regime from "profiting," the debate has now shifted to whether the US should launch a high-risk ground invasion to seize Iran's volatile nuclear stockpile.

Nikki Haley proposes Special Forces mission to seize uranium

Leading the Republican charge, Nikki Haley told CNN’s 'State of the Union' that the US must "go after Iran where it hurts" to finally bring the regime to its knees.

Haley proposed a military solution: a lightning-fast Special Forces mission to seize Iran’s enriched uranium. "This is a special forces mission," Haley asserted, claiming elite teams could secure the nuclear materials in just "a week to 10 days."

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson echoed this hardline stance, advocating for the "total removal" of the Iranian leadership.

Johnson admitted that while the mission might be a "longer-term" endeavor, the US has not truly won until the regime was "completely defanged."

For GOP hawks, the failed negotiations are a clear signal that the time for talking has ended and the time to "finish the job" has begun.

Mark Warner calls Iran raid plan self-destructive

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a rebuttal to Haley’s plan, labeling the proposed raid as self-destructive. 

Warner argued that seizing 1,000lb canisters of "highly volatile" uranium would require a massive ground presence. 

"It would take 10,000 troops on the ground guarding a perimeter," Warner warned, noting that the Iranians could easily "bomb their own facility" to trap American operators in a nuclear catastrophe.

The Democratic leadership is now moving to block the president from returning to "full-scale hostilities."

Senator Tim Kaine announced that he will press for a war motion in the Senate to halt the escalation, arguing that even an "imperfect ceasefire" is better than a war that has already "devastated" the American economy and compounded the suffering of the citizenry.

Zohran Mamdani calls conflict economically draining

The partisan divide extends to the very legality of the conflict. Senator Kaine blasted the president for launching the war without the "support of allies, the American public, or Congress."

This sentiment was echoed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who laid out a moral case against the "US-Israel war with Iran."

Mamdani told Al Jazeera that the conflict is "deeply unpopular" and is draining billions of dollars that could be used for domestic needs.