“Even if military action were required — and we certainly should have kept the credible threat of military force on the table throughout which always improves diplomacy — the president is trying to make you think it would be 150,000 heavy mechanized troops on the ground in the Middle East again as we saw in Iraq. That's simply not the case,” Cotton said on the Family Research Council's Washington Watch program.

Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, also accused President Obama of brandishing a “false choice” between war and his announced deal on Iran's nuclear program. He believes that the U.S. should instead pursue focused military strikes.

He continued to say that making a deal would be “wishful thinking” and similar to “a child's wish for a pony,” while military action against Iran would not drag out like the Iraq War but would closer resemble 1998’s four day-long Operation Desert Fox.

“It would be something more along the lines of what President Clinton did in December 1998 during Operation Desert Fox. Several days of air and naval bombing against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities for exactly the same kind of behavior. For interfering with weapons inspectors and for disobeying Security Council resolutions.”

He explained, “All we're asking is that the president simply be as tough in the protection of America's national security interest as Bill Clinton was.”

Cotton is the senator who orchestrated the letter sent to Iranian leadership that some Democrats say could have compromised the nuclear negotiations.