U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, prepares to shake hands with state Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, after the conclusion of his speech to the Alaska Legislature on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Less than an hour after President Donald Trump announced that the United States had bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities, Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said he supported the decision.
In a written statement posted on the social media site X, Sullivan said he commends the president.
“The terrorist leaders of Iran have, in essence, been at war with the United States for decades — targeting, wounding and killing thousands of American service members for years,” Sullivan wrote.
Sullivan, a former Marine Corps officer, has repeatedly called for aggressive actions against Iran, particularly amid Iran’s support of anti-American militias during the Iraq War. Five years ago, he supported Trump’s decision to assassinate an Iranian general in Iraq.
Sullivan and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, previously supported Trump’s decision in 2018 to withdraw from a diplomatic agreement intended to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
International experts and Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence under Trump, have said that no evidence has been produced showing that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.
Trump himself has said he does not believe Gabbard, and Sullivan, a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, spoke this week in that committee, implying that he would support military action in order to deter Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
He reiterated that position after the Trump-ordered bombing.
“Making sure the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism never gets a nuclear weapon is part of the work of reestablishing deterrence against Iran, which was lost during the appeasement of the Biden Administration. This is difficult work, but critical for our national security. I fully support the President and his national security team in these critical efforts,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for Murkowski said she did not have an immediate comment.
Rep. Nick Begich III, R-Alaska, spoke about Iran during an interview Friday, one day before the Trump-ordered bombing.
During the interview, he said he had no special knowledge about what would happen in the coming weeks and months but viewed the situation as Iran’s to settle.
“I think the ball is at this moment in Iran’s court: Do they want to be a member of the international community or not? And what’s been made clearly, not just by the United States, but many of our friends and allies around the world, is that we cannot allow them to become a nuclear-armed nation,” Begich said.
“We don’t need another nation, particularly a nation like Iran, to gain the ability to attack with nuclear weapons. We’ve already seen they have hypersonics and are willing to use those. A nuclear-tipped hypersonic would be very difficult to intercept, and it creates an asymmetric capability in a nation that has made quote, “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” official policy. And when you have a nation saber-rattling like that on a regular basis, actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it’s a dangerous situation, not just for Israel, not just for the United States, but for the entire world,” he said.
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