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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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Representative James Comer said Wednesday that U.S. boots on the ground in Iran may be unavoidable, despite hopes it won't happen.
Speaking with NewsNation, the Kentucky Republican said most members of Congress did not want troops on the ground in the Middle East and that President Donald Trump had not ruled out the move.
"If there are boots on the ground, I hope they're not on the ground any longer than the boots on the ground were in Venezuela," Comer said. "But I think that's something the president knows, that members of Congress certainly hope doesn't happen, but sometimes that's unavoidable in a situation like this."
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Comer also paid respects to the six U.S. personnel who had died in the operation launched Saturday, which led to the death of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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What Has the White House Said About US Troops?
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that putting American troops on the ground in Iran was not currently part of the plan.
"But I certainly will never take away military options on behalf of the president of the United States, of the Commander in Chief, and he, wisely, does not do the same for himself," Leavitt said. "I know there's many leaders in the past who like to take options off the table without having a full understanding of how things could develop."
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said earlier Wednesday that the United States was surging additional warplanes into the region and vowed there would be “no letup” in strikes.
Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine announced that American forces will begin striking “progressively deeper into Iranian territory," while adding that the U.S. has established air superiority and was preparing to push inland to widen its operational freedom.
Hegseth told reporters the timeline in Iran could go further than previously speculated, saying, “You can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three,” he says. “Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo.”
So far, the focus has appeared to be on airstrikes and defensive maneuvers alongside Israel, but concerns have been mounting of an escalation that could lead to troops on the ground.
On Monday, Trump told the New York Post that he would not rule out sending troops into Iran.
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground—like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.'”
In a statement to Newsweek earlier this week, a White House spokesperson said Trump has been clear that Iran could never possess a nuclear weapon.
"The President’s first instinct is always diplomacy, and his representatives worked extensively, and in good faith, to make a deal that would ensure that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities posed no threat to our homeland," the spokesperson said. "The administration warned Iran that there would be dire consequences if they failed to make a deal. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime refused to engage realistically with the United States.
"As a result, President Trump is taking decisive action to eliminate major national security threats to the American people, which past Presidents have talked about for 47 years, but only this President had the courage to accomplish.”
What Have Members of Congress Said About Iran?
Many congressional Republicans have shown their support for the Trump administration's actions in Iran, but Comer's response Wednesday highlighted a tension over the U.S. getting embroiled in another lengthy Middle East conflict.
Representative Eli Crane, an Arizona Republican, said on the Charlie Kirk Show Monday: “I hope it works out. Military operations like this can go sideways so fast, you know, it will make your head spin.” Others told Politico on condition of anonymity that they needed clearer objectives from the administration to feel more comfortable about the U.S.'s involvement in the country.
Democrats have been more vocal in their concerns about the president's actions, with Virginia Senator Mark Warner saying he did not believe Americans wanted troops on the ground to help Iranian protesters.
"But you can't protect those protesters from the air," he told PBS on Tuesday. "And what I fear is happening—and let me be the first to acknowledge I'm a Democrat, but I think our exit from Afghanistan in many ways was a disaster. I think we are now seeing in Trump's war of choice the beginnings of what could be even more disastrous about how we protect our interests in the region, how we protect our allies in the region who are now being hit, and actually how we actually do something for the Iranian people."
Other lawmakers have called once again for the president's impeachment over the strikes, largely on the argument that he did not inform Congress beforehand.
Update 3/4/26, 1:22 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
Update 3/4/26, 2:12 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comments from Karoline Leavitt.
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