Rep. Ro Khanna laid out a three-part plan on CNN Monday that would have the United States stop military operations against Iran, offer Tehran an "ironclad guarantee" that neither America nor Israel will strike again, and enlist China and Russia to back that promise. The California Democrat told host Anderson Cooper that this was the path to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and bringing gas prices back down, framing the regime that has destabilized the Middle East for decades as a party that simply needs to feel "safe."
The proposal drew immediate attention for what it asks of Washington and what it offers to Tehran. In Khanna's telling, the United States should halt its bombing campaign, invite two of its chief geopolitical adversaries to co-sponsor a security guarantee for the Islamic Republic, and revisit sanctions, all before Iran makes a single concession on its nuclear program.
As Breitbart reported, Khanna outlined his framework in plain terms during the exchange with Cooper:
"We need to end the war, and we can do it with three things. We need an immediate ceasefire, stop the bombing. We need to make sure that we give Iran an ironclad guarantee that Israel or we will not attack again and involve China and Russia in that. And then we need to look at some of the sanctions and have a diplomatic solution."
Cooper pressed on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply passes. Khanna said the only way to reopen it was to make Iran feel secure.
"Well, that's the only way, in my view, that we get the Strait of Hormuz open. If we don't give Iran a guarantee that they're not, that they're going to be safe. They're going to think, well, Israel is saying they want to mow the lawn."
When Cooper asked whether Iran's continued control of the Strait of Hormuz was acceptable, Khanna pivoted to energy costs. He said gas was $2.30 before the conflict and has risen to $4, and argued the war "is obviously not working."
"No, but, right now, look, gas was $2.30 before the war. Gas has gone up to $4. So, it's obviously not working, the war. The only way we're going to get out of it is to have some kind of diplomatic solution, and that would require us to stop the bombing and to figure out how we convince Iran that we're not going to continue to bomb them."
The framing is worth pausing over. Khanna's argument treats the price at the pump as the decisive metric, and then concludes that the remedy is to reassure the regime responsible for choking the strait in the first place. He did not address what leverage the United States would retain once it stopped military operations, lifted sanctions pressure, and handed Tehran a multilateral security blanket backed by Beijing and Moscow.
This is not an isolated case of Democrats defying their own party leadership on the Iran conflict, but Khanna's version goes further than most, proposing concessions that would have been unthinkable even within the Obama-era Iran deal framework.
Cooper also asked Khanna to rank his priorities: was the top goal preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, or reopening the strait? Khanna was direct.
"Right now, the number one is to open the Strait of Hormuz. The second one is that, yes, Iran should not be nuclear, but we know that they are, they don't have the capacity to put the enriched uranium on ballistic missiles. And we know that it would be a negotiation to get the enriched uranium."
In other words, the congressman placed Iran's nuclear ambitions second to the shipping lane, and then minimized the nuclear threat itself by asserting, without citing an intelligence assessment on air, that Iran lacks the capacity to mount enriched uranium on ballistic missiles. He offered no sourcing for that claim. He treated the enriched uranium stockpile as a matter for future negotiation, not an urgent danger.
That posture sits uneasily alongside decades of bipartisan consensus that a nuclear-armed Iran represents an existential threat to Israel and a destabilizing force across the region. Khanna did not explain how the United States would negotiate the surrender of enriched uranium after it had already given away its military leverage and sanctions pressure.
The CNN interview did not occur in a vacuum. Khanna has been among the most vocal congressional opponents of the U.S. military campaign against Iran. In a separate Fox News opinion piece, Khanna wrote that he is "forcing a vote in the House of Representatives on a bipartisan resolution with my Republican colleague, Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, to end this illegal and unconstitutional conflict." He called the upcoming vote "one of the most consequential in our nation's history."
The Massie-Khanna resolution would require U.S. forces to leave unauthorized hostilities in Iran unless Congress formally approves the operation. It is a war-powers play, and one that has split Democrats as much as it has drawn attention to libertarian-leaning Republicans like Massie.
That split is real. Not every Democrat has followed Khanna's lead. Rep. Greg Landsman of Ohio publicly backed the administration's initial targeted strikes and said he would oppose the Massie-Khanna resolution. As Newsmax reported, Landsman told CNN, "Yeah, I support the targeted strikes," adding, "I'm more of a country-first guy, so whatever I think is best for the country and for my constituents, for the district, in this case, national security. To me, this was a no-brainer." Landsman was also reported to be among centrist House Democrats backing an alternative resolution that gives the administration a 30-day window before requiring congressional approval.
The contrast between Khanna and Landsman captures the fault line running through the Democratic caucus on national security. It is the same kind of internal fracture visible in recent Senate races where candidates have distanced themselves from Chuck Schumer's leadership, a party that cannot agree on whether to support its own country's military operations, let alone how to negotiate with an adversary.
Strip away the diplomatic language and look at what Khanna's three-step plan actually requires. Step one: the United States and Israel stop all military action. Step two: Washington, Beijing, and Moscow jointly guarantee Iran's security, meaning the U.S. would ask two nations that have actively undermined American interests to co-sign a promise protecting a regime that has funded proxy wars from Lebanon to Yemen. Step three: sanctions relief and a "diplomatic solution," with the details left for later.
At no point in the interview did Khanna describe what Iran would be required to give up front. The ceasefire comes first. The guarantee comes first. The sanctions review comes first. Iran's obligations, on the nuclear program, on the strait, on its proxy networks, are all downstream. That is not a negotiation. It is a sequence of concessions dressed up as a peace plan.
Khanna's insistence on involving China and Russia raises its own questions. Both nations have strategic interests in a weakened American position in the Middle East. Both have supplied Iran with diplomatic cover at the United Nations for years. Asking them to guarantee Iran's safety is less a show of multilateral strength than an invitation for two rivals to formalize their influence over a region where American credibility is already under pressure.
Sen. Cory Booker recently acknowledged that Democrats have "failed this moment" and called for new party leadership. Khanna's Iran proposal suggests the failure runs deeper than messaging, it extends to basic strategic thinking about who deserves reassurance and who deserves pressure in a conflict zone.
Khanna's use of gas prices as the anchor for his argument is telling. He cited a rise from $2.30 to $4, and declared the war "obviously not working." But the price increase is driven in part by Iran's own decision to threaten and restrict passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Rewarding that behavior with a security guarantee does not deter future disruptions, it incentivizes them.
If a hostile regime can choke a vital waterway, drive up energy costs, and then extract a promise of safety from the world's most powerful military in exchange for reopening the lane it closed, the lesson for every aspiring regional power is clear: escalation pays.
The broader pattern of Democratic division on Middle East policy is not new, but Khanna's proposal marks a distinct escalation in what the party's progressive wing is willing to offer an adversary. It is one thing to argue for congressional oversight of military action, a position with legitimate constitutional roots. It is another to propose handing Iran, China, and Russia a joint veto over American and Israeli security decisions in the region.
Anderson Cooper asked reasonable, direct questions. But the most important question went unasked, or at least unanswered: What happens if Iran pockets every concession and continues enriching uranium anyway?
Khanna said Iran "should not be nuclear." He also said Iran doesn't currently have the capacity to weaponize its enriched uranium. And he said getting the uranium would require "a negotiation." But he proposed dismantling every source of American leverage before that negotiation begins. The logic collapses under its own weight.
The congressman is not a backbencher. He has positioned himself as a serious voice on foreign policy within the Democratic caucus. That makes his proposal worth examining on its merits, and on its merits, it asks the United States to trust the good faith of a regime that has never earned it, guaranteed by two powers that have every reason to see America's hand weakened.
When your peace plan requires your adversaries to protect your enemies, it's not diplomacy. It's surrender with extra steps.
