President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominees will help set the direction of U.S. foreign policy going forward. They need to be able to answer serious questions about building a more peaceful world.

As the Senate prepares confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team, FCNL’s lobbyists are meeting with Congressional staff planning those hearings and preparing specific questions. The hearings for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are scheduled to begin January 11, with hearings for the Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis and the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley scheduled for shortly after that.

Senate staff — and our FCNL staff — are digging into the detailed backgrounds of these candidates as we prepare to understand how they can serve the country. We also expect and will be encouraging Congress to continue to exercise its constitutional oversight of the executive branch beyond the confirmation process. But even before we get into the specifics, we have some broader questions about the policies articulated by these individuals and by the president-elect.

How will you prevent a religious war?

How will the new foreign policy cabinet make clear that the United States is not at war against Islam? As a Quaker organization we’re against wars of all kinds. As a matter of faith, we don’t believe that the U.S. should be at war with any religion and Friends have a long history of both suffering from and campaigning against religious discrimination.

This isn’t only a matter of faith, it’s also the basis for good public policy. The U.S. has a long history of respect for religious liberty. Retired Gen. David Petraeus who led the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and also led the CIA, wrote recently that blanket discrimination against people on the basis of religion are counterproductive and dangerous: “Rather than making our country safer, they will compound the already grave terrorist danger to our citizens.”

Yet the president-elect’s nominee for National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, has written that “Islam is a political ideology” and “a cancer” that “hides behind being a religion.” The president-elect himself has suggested the U.S. might establish a Muslim watch list and FCNL spoken out strongly against this idea and supported legislation that rejects any attempt to target people based on religion. The president-elect’s choice for CIA director, Mike Pompeo, has at times called the effort to combat terrorism as a war between radical Muslims and Christians. The National Security Advisor is not subject to Senate confirmation, but we expect the Senate will ask the Secretaries of State and Defense how they will make sure the world understands that the U.S. is not at war with any religion, that U.S. policy is not against Islam and that the U.S. will never target anyone based on their religion.

How will you preserve diplomacy and prevent war with Iran?

How will the new foreign policy team communicate U.S. support for diplomacy with Iran? The historic Iran nuclear accord that went into effect in January 2016 has preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and prevented another war. And that’s a view shared by some of the top security chiefs in Israel.

The good news is that president-elect’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis, has said that the U.S. should abide. But the president elect, during his campaign, called the agreement “stupid,” a “lopsided disgrace” and the “worst deal ever negotiated” and he has said he will renegotiate the agreement. And Mattis himself has suggested that Iran is responsible for much of the war in the Middle East and the emergence of the violent, extremist group ISIS. Beyond that, press reports indicate Donald Trump is considering nominating John R. Bolton, a former U.S. government official who advocated bombing Iran in 2015.

If I can read these statements on the internet, so can people in Iran, where presidential elections are scheduled for May 2017. There are already candidates in Iran calling for that country to pull out of this international agreement because of statements from the United States. These types of international agreements are living documents, requiring constant diplomatic engagement and ongoing talks. If the Trump administration does not want to blow up the Iran nuclear deal and start another war, then Secretaries of State and Defense will need to make sure that they state loudly, clearly and consistently that the U.S. remains committed to working with Iran to ensure that the U.S. and Iran meet all their obligations under the agreement.

Will our nation of immigrants continue that 200 year tradition?

In the midst of the worst refugee crisis since the World War II, will the U.S. remain the nation described on the Statue of Liberty that states “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Yet during the campaign, candidate Donald Trump and some of his nominees have suggested that the U.S. might block any refugees coming to this country, or block refugees from particular countries or religions.

FCNL, as my colleague Yasmine Taeb has made clear, continues to believe that the U.S. needs to welcome refugees to this country and we have advocated for increasing the number of refugees admitted to the United States. This December, Yasmine worked with Senator Al Franken to successful press for an increase in the money for refugee resettlement in this country. In the confirmation hearings in January, we expect senators will want to press Secretary of State designate Tillerson and nominees for other relevant cabinet appointments to offer assurances that the U.S .will not turn its back on refugees and immigrants.

Will you keep the foreign policy toolbox full?

More than 90 percent of all the money that the U.S. government spends on foreign engagement is devoted to the military. And President-elect Donald Trump has said he expects to press for increase in military spending despite the Pentagon’s own acknowledgement of \$125 billion in bureaucratic waste.

As a matter of faith, we at FCNL believe War Is Not the Answer. As a matter of public policy, FCNL has argued that the early prevention of wars and violence is the most effective course of action not only to save lives, but also to save money, limit military interventions and promote U.S. national interest.

FCNL has worked for the last decade to help establish structures within the U.S. government that focus on preventing atrocities that include dedicating staffing and funding and an interagency cooperation mechanism that requires high-level attention to potential atrocities in the future. In preparation for this new administration, our Peacebuilding Program organized a bipartisan panel of experts that has made nearly 40 recommendations for specific policies that would improve the U.S. government’s efforts to prevent atrocities and mass violence. We hope congressional staff will use the confirmation process to help educate the new administration about the importance of these efforts.