New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen reached across state lines to The Boston Globe on Tuesday to publish an op-ed urging U.S. support for war-torn Ukraine. But she continued dodging questions about how the U.S. should respond to Iran-backed attacks that killed three Americans last week.
“To many Americans, this probably seems like a far-off war. But what happens in Ukraine does not stay in Ukraine. It impacts the day-to-day lives of all Americans, including those of us here in New England,” Shaheen wrote in the Massachusetts newspaper.
“America’s targeted assistance to Ukraine is not charity, nor is it a blank check. It is a strategic investment with oversight that bolsters U.S. deterrence, protects democracies across Europe, and strengthens the U.S. industrial base — including to contractors in New England.”
Shaheen urged Congress to pass “an urgently needed $60 billion aid package for Ukraine,” and she referenced a rumored Capitol Hill deal that would include funding for Ukraine, aid for Israel, and additional security at America’s southern border.
What she didn’t mention — unlike most of her Senate Armed Services Committee colleagues — was the drone attack on U.S. soldiers based in Jordan by Iranian-backed militants, which killed three soldiers and left some 34 injured.
“It’s time for devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” said Shaheen’s Armed Services Committee colleague Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
“We must respond to these repeated attacks by Iran and its proxies by striking directly against Iranian targets and its leadership,” added Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the top Republican on the committee.
But Shaheen has declined to respond to multiple requests for comment, both about her long-standing support for allowing funding to flow to Iran and her current stance on responding to the Islamic Republic’s attack on Americans.
Iranian proxy forces have attacked U.S. forces 165 times in the Middle East since Oct. 17, The Wall Street Journal reports. At least 80 Americans have been wounded.
Despite the repeated attacks on Americans, Shaheen’s stance of appeasing Iran — $100 billion has flowed to the terror-sponsoring nation since Biden took office — is at odd with her more aggressive policy toward Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
“If autocrats like Putin are allowed to dictate the futures of sovereign countries, our world will change completely. The global economy will suffer, respect for human rights and democratic values will deteriorate, and dictators everywhere — like Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Chinese President Xi Jinping — will believe they, too, can have free reign over independent nations” Shaheen wrote in The Globe.
And Ukraine’s motto, “Freedom or Death,” she added, “doesn’t sound too different from New Hampshire’s motto: Live Free or Die. It’s a reminder that our friends in Ukraine aren’t so different from us, and their fight for life and freedom is our fight, too.”
