On the January 30 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, during an interview with Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), host Chris Matthews claimed that he is “afraid we're going to get up some morning, we're going to be at war with Iran, [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] will be saluting, the rest of the Democrats will be saluting, and the American people will never have had any role in this.” As Media Matters for America noted, Matthews has previously claimed that Clinton would be “saluting the president” if President Bush ordered an attack on Iran, despite Clinton's stated position advocating diplomacy regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Matthews did not explain why he was “afraid” that “the rest of the Democrats will be saluting” if the United States attacks Iran.

From the January 30 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: OK, let me challenge you on that, Senator. Have you learned the lessons of Iraq so we don't repeat them in Iran? That we don't let a bunch of ideologues around the president scare us into a war with Iran, where we find our troops at war with a huge country, a very sophisticated country, with lots of danger in the world through its elements in the Hezbollah and elsewhere in the Middle East. We go to war with them on the same kind of argument that [Vice President Dick] Cheney and [former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz and the rest gave us to go into this war.

I am afraid we're going to get up some morning, we're going to be at war with Iran, Hillary Clinton will be saluting, the rest of the Democrats will be saluting, and the American people will never have had any role in this. That's my worry. That's why I want to go back and look at how we got in this war.