‘Don’t fall for it’: Arizona congressman and former Marine who 'gets the same intel' as Tom Cotton warns some GOPers are 'exaggerating' the Iran threat

Before Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona pursued a career in politics, he served in the United States military: Gallego was a Marine infantryman in Iraq in 2005. And the 39-year-old Democratic congressman is warning that the push for a military confrontation with Iran in 2019 is full of misleading assertions.

Gallego, now a member of the House Armed Services Committee, received a classified briefing on May 17—and the following day, he told the Washington Post, “What I saw was a lot of misinterpretation and wanting conflict coming from the administration and intelligence community. Intel doesn’t show existential threats. Even what it shows, it doesn’t show threats to U.S. interests.”

The claim that Iran poses a major threat to the U.S. in 2019, according to Gallego, is mainly being advanced by National Security Adviser John Bolton and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. On Saturday, Gallego took to Twitter and warned, “I get the same intel as Cotton. He is greatly exaggerating the situation to spur us to war. Don’t fall for it.”

President Donald Trump has been highly critical of President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State John Kerry on Iran policy, terminating their arms agreement with the Iranian government. But Trump has, at times, been quite critical of neocons as well. And according to the Washington Post, Trump has reportedly become frustrated with Bolton as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over Iran—believing them to be unnecessarily hawkish with that country.

“Deterrence is important to contain bad actors like Iran, but there has to be a fine line between deterrence and escalation,” Gallego told the Washington Post. “We can’t automatically go to war because a 17-year-old fires an AK-47 at U.S. interests.”

After serving in the Arizona State Senate for four years, Gallego was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014 and was reelected in 2016 and 2018.