Iowa Democratic Senate candidate Josh Turek says he wants to avoid ‘forever wars’

State Rep. Josh Turek mentioned the U.S. attack on Iran in remarks at a public forum Saturday morning in Council Bluffs and later cited the importance of congressional authorization for military action.

The United States and Israel launched a major attack on Iran on Saturday, with U.S. President Donald Trump calling for regime change by encouraging the Iranian public to "seize control of your destiny" after the strikes.

Turek, a Democrat from Council Bluffs who is running for his party's nomination for U.S. Senate, said it was important to address that "we are bombing Iran" as he sat down with Republican state Sen. Dan Dawson and state Rep. Brent Siegrist for a legislative forum hosted by the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce.

"My thoughts and prayers are with our troops," Turek said. "We do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons. However, I want to make sure that we don't end up in forever wars and forever conflicts as well. So I think that's where I'll stop with my comments."

Dawson, the chair of the Iowa Senate Ways and Means Committee, said he called his brother — who is currently deployed with the Iowa National Guard — when he heard the news Saturday morning.

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"The most important thing for us all to recognize is that we still have a large number of Iowa Guardsmen deployed overseas in that area of the world," Dawson said. "Whatever your faith of choice is, I would just encourage everyone, when you leave here today or tonight, say a quick prayer tomorrow morning for those in harm's way."

Siegrist, a former speaker of the Iowa House, said he shares the same comments as Dawson and Turek.

"Thoughts and prayers, as we say, and hopefully everybody will get out as safely as possible," Siegrist said.

While the legislative forum was taking place, the Associated Press reported that Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader of the U.S. House, said that Trump “failed to seek congressional authorization prior to striking Iran."

Jeffries said that “Iran is a bad actor and must be aggressively confronted for its human rights violations, nuclear ambitions, support of terrorism and the threat it poses to our allies like Israel and Jordan in the region,” the AP reported. But Jeffries has said in a statement that outside “exigent circumstances,” the president “must seek authorization for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war.”

The Nonpareil asked Turek after the forum to comment on Jeffries saying that Trump had failed to secure congressional authorization before the attack.

Turek said he ran a bipartisan bill in the Iowa House with Rep. Jeff Shipley, a Republican from Birmingham, to prevent Iowa National Guard troops from being sent to a foreign conflict that does not have congressional approval. Turek said the bill also would prevent the governor from sending Iowa National Guard troops into another state unless that governor had requested those troops.

Turek pointed to Dawson's remarks that there are members of the Iowa National Guard deployed overseas, saying "my thoughts and prayers are with our armed service members right now, and certainly our Iowa armed service members."

"If we're going to put our great men and women in harm's way, we need to make sure that these conflicts have the approval of Congress," Turek said.