Sen. Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Saturday that he believes that there could be “weeks, not days, of joint efforts” by the U.S. and its allies in Iran after the massive military mission launched overnight.
“We’re probably looking at weeks, not days, of joint efforts by the United States, Israel and our Arab partners, who have also been attacked this morning,” Cotton told CBS News’ Major Garrett. “But the upshot of it will be, after 47 years of waging war against the United States and the civilized world, the ayatollahs are finally going to face justice.”
The U.S. and Israel announced a major military attack called “Operation Epic Fury” against Iran early Saturday. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is presumed dead after the mission, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
Saturday’s strikes came after President Trump threatened the Iranian regime for weeks to make a new deal to rein in its nuclear program, and before that, threatened it over its violent crackdown on protesters in January.
In retaliation, Israel’s military reported multiple rounds of Iranian missile launches targeting the country, and at least two major U.S. military bases in the region were also targeted by Iranian missiles.
Saturday’s action follows airstrikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities that the U.S. launched in June 2025.
Cotton is a member of the “Gang of Eight” lawmakers that include the top Democrats and Republicans and the heads of the House and Senate intelligence committees and who Secretary of State Marco Rubio said were briefed ahead of the mission. Cotton said Saturday that the current mission needs to not only curb Iran’s nuclear program but also to “dismantle their terror support network.” These objectives will cause it to “take longer than the strikes on their nuclear program last summer.”
Cotton said that there’s “no question” that Iran is “at one of its weakest points since the revolution in 1979,” but the threat from their missiles “genuinely is imminent.”
“As I said, they have thousands and thousands of missiles,” Cotton said. “That’s what they’re using to attack us, our Arab friends and Israel today. They have many more missiles than we have missile defenses. And the balance only gets worse. Every single month.”
While the U.S. has undertaken military missions without authorization from Congress, the Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war. After the mission in Venezuela to remove then-President Nicolas Maduro, five Republicans defected from the party to advance a war powers resolution aimed at limiting Mr. Trump’s powers, although ultimately the resolution did fail in the upper chamber.
Republicans Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna said they will force a vote on war powers resolution regarding further Trump administration action in Iran.