U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) accused President Donald Trump on Thursday of prioritizing military escalation over negotiation in the ongoing war with Iran, saying in a post on X that six months into the conflict, the president is “still choosing bombs over diplomacy” and is failing to consider the risk his strategy poses to American troops in the region.
Duckworth’s post came in direct response to an NBC News report published Thursday detailing a fresh round of U.S. strikes on Iranian targets and Tehran’s vow to retaliate. The senator, a combat veteran who serves on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, has been one of the most consistent Democratic critics of the war since it began in February. Her full post read:
“Remember all the times that Trump said the war was over?
Six months in, he’s still choosing bombs over diplomacy. Not giving a damn about the targets he puts on our troops’ backs.”
The post was published at 12:31 p.m. and cited the NBC News article “Iran vows to ‘punish the aggressor today’ after U.S. unleashes ‘heavy wave’ of strikes,” which reported that U.S. Central Command had completed an overnight bombing campaign against dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets, including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, and coastal surveillance sites. The Iranian military responded by warning that “the aggressor will be punished today,” according to the report.
The renewed strikes shattered a brief period of relative calm that had followed a push toward diplomatic talks aimed at reviving a stalled peace framework. Jordan said it intercepted a new barrage of Iranian missiles, while Kuwait reported that an Iranian strike destroyed a building belonging to a Chinese company and killed one worker. Three IRGC members were reported killed in Iran’s Zanjan province, and a toddler was among three people killed on the island of Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iran’s state-run IRIB news agency, as cited by NBC News.
The conflict also showed signs of widening beyond its established front lines. Egypt confirmed Thursday that a drone strike had ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at the Mediterranean port of Damietta, an attack that, if tied to Iran, would represent a significant escalation involving a key U.S. ally and regional mediator. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called Egypt an “important friend and partner in the region” and warned against “Israeli plots and false-flag operations designed to undermine regional peace” in a post on X.
Asked directly whether Iran was behind the Egypt attack, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he had been briefed and that “it’s a little more of the same,” adding that the situation was “going to be straightening out” without elaborating further. He also said the U.S. would continue striking Iran “very hard because it’s our turn to hit them.” Separately, Trump told Fox News in a phone call that he intended to “beat the f—ing s— out of” Iran following its attack on American forces this week.
Saudi Arabia has attempted to signal restraint even as it joined U.S. strikes against Iran-backed militants in Iraq this week. Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman met separately with Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday to relay a message from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the kingdom does not seek to escalate the war, according to a source familiar with the matter. The Saudi strikes were framed as a demonstration of the kingdom’s capacity to defend its own infrastructure rather than an endorsement of a broader campaign.
The renewed fighting has rattled global energy markets. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was hovering around $90 a barrel Thursday morning, and roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply historically transits the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint that has remained the central flashpoint of the war and the primary obstacle in ceasefire negotiations. Shipping data showed a handful of tankers, including a Qatar-linked liquefied natural gas carrier, navigating the strait through Iranian-controlled lanes overnight, while roughly 59 vessels passed through the Bab el-Mandeb strait in the prior 24 hours.
A War Duckworth Has Opposed From the Start
Thursday’s post extends a pattern of criticism Duckworth has sustained since Trump launched what the administration has referred to as Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28, 2026. In her first statement on the strikes that day, Duckworth said Trump “cannot stop breaking his promises to the American people,” arguing he had pledged to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars and lower costs for families but had done neither.
Days later, in Senate floor remarks urging colleagues to support a War Powers Resolution led by Sen. Tim Kaine, Duckworth argued that Trump was “too infatuated with maximum pressure to consider even minimum diplomacy,” calling his approach “reckless, senseless and dangerous.”
In April, after Trump announced a short-lived “ceasefire,” Duckworth said that before the war began, “the Strait of Hormuz was open and violence free, gas was $1 cheaper and thousands more people were alive.” When the ceasefire unraveled and Trump pivoted to a partial military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Duckworth said he was “caring more about saving face than saving lives” and accused him of “launching a risky new front in this war at our servicemembers’ expense” with no defined end state.
Duckworth has continued pressing for institutional oversight of the war throughout the spring and summer. In May, she questioned CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about the administration’s lack of a defined strategy, warning the approach risked becoming “a recipe for a forever war.” Later that month, she formally requested that the Inspector General community designate a lead IG to conduct independent oversight of military operations against Iran.
Duckworth is part of what her office describes as the “Senate Six,” a group of Democratic senators who have forced repeated War Powers Resolution votes aimed at ending U.S. hostilities with Iran. Those measures were blocked by Senate Republicans nine times before the chamber passed a War Powers Concurrent Resolution 50-48 on June 23, 2026. In her statement afterward, Duckworth said the war had by that point “killed 14 servicemembers, burned through at least $35 billion, drove costs through the roof and emboldened our adversaries,” and argued the vote “does not wash their hands of the damage already done.”
Most recently, on July 14, Duckworth announced she would vote against the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act unless it included her amendment to halt additional funding for offensive operations against Iran until Congress explicitly authorizes the war, while still permitting self-defense and defense of U.S. allies.
The Toll of the War So Far
The Department of Defense’s casualty database was updated Thursday to reflect 11 additional troops wounded in fighting with Iran since Tuesday, bringing the total number of American servicemembers wounded since the war began to 653, according to reporting from ABC News. The conflict, which began with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on February 28, has since drawn in additional countries and fronts, with Iranian retaliatory strikes recorded against U.S. and allied targets in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman over the preceding months, according to open-source tracking of the conflict.
Diplomatic efforts have repeatedly stalled. U.S. and Iranian delegations entered negotiations in June built around a memorandum of understanding intended to end the war, but the two sides have continued exchanging strikes since, with the Strait of Hormuz remaining the central flashpoint. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said over the weekend that a recent pause in hostilities was aimed at “giving diplomacy some space,” while cautioning that additional American military assets were continuing to move into the region.
As of Thursday, with strikes resuming and the conflict spreading to Egypt, the path toward a durable ceasefire remained unclear, and Duckworth’s latest post signaled that Democratic criticism of the administration’s handling of the war is likely to continue as Congress weighs further oversight measures, including her pending NDAA amendment and the ongoing Inspector General request.