When the name of John Kerry, former secretary of state, comes up in the news, Sen. Dan Sullivan doesn’t bother to aim before he starts shooting.

That’s what happened when the New York Times published a report in which Iran’s foreign minister claimed that he had learned from Kerry that Israel had attacked Iranian interests 200 times in Syria. Sullivan said Kerry should resign.

“I went to the Senate floor Monday, as soon as I saw that New York Times report and demanded his resignation,” Sullivan said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show Wednesday. “Or for him to be fired by Biden, if these allegations are true. And look, I think they’re true.”

On Monday, Sullivan suggested that Kerry was guilty of treason and acted as if everyone should believe whatever Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.

“People are talking about treason — and I don’t throw that word around a lot,” Sullivan told Politico. “John Kerry does all kinds of things that I can’t stand. But this is the one that broke the camel’s back.”

Kerry denied Zarif’s account and evidence emerged immediately that Sullivan was irresponsible in accusing Kerry of treason. There have been published reports for years that Israel went after targets in Syria.

Exhibit No. 1 is this headline and story from Reuters in 2018 in which Israel announced that it had carried out more than 200 attacks against Iranian targets in Syria since early 2017.

A reporter with the Jerusalem Post, who has no time for Kerry, defended the former secretary of state against the instant attack from the likes of Sullivan.

“If there’s one message that emerges from the leaked Zarif tapes, it’s that Iran’s foreign minister is a liar,” wrote Lahav Harkov.

He said, Kerry “probably doesn’t deserve the wrath he’s attracting over this Zarif quote. It’s Zarif and his smooth-talking to cover for Iran’s genocidal regime that deserves our ire.”

Sullivan, who claims Kerry was the worst secretary of state in U.S. history, began his Senate speech by saying, “I rise today on the Senate floor to call for the resignation of John Kerry as a member of the Biden administration’s national security team.”

He didn’t hedge his statement. He took the Iranian claim at face value.

He said it was the first time as a senator that he had ever called for anyone’s resignation. Sullivan said Kerry was “working against America’s national security interests” and “he needs to go.”

It was only after a minute into his spiel, that Sullivan tried to hedge his bets, saying Kerry needs to go, “if” the claims made by Zarif are true and if secret information was passed along. He said, “if this is true” five times. He said, “if he did this” twice and “if true” once.

Sullivan continued his rant about Kerry and said the former secretary’s position on the South China Sea under Obama “bordered on treacherous, but not treasonous.”

On Larry Kudlow’s show on Fox, the host praised him by saying “Dan, it’s very brave, you called (for) his resignation.“

Sullivan followed his anti-Kerry publicity tour by getting 18 other right-wing senators to sign a letter asking the president to get to the bottom of the situation. To her credit., Sen. Lisa Murkowski did not sign onto this manufactured issue.

Unlike his earlier calls for Kerry’s resignation, the Sullivan letter touched on the possibility that the Iranian leader was lying, spreading misinformation, or that his remark was taken out of context, which would mean that Sullivan’s attack on Kerry was simply grandstanding.

“If proven false, this narrative is yet further proof that Iranian officials are dishonest brokers and we ask that your administration be mindful of this as you continue discussions on the future of U.S. posture towards Iran, Sullivan’s letter said.

It’s hard to prove anything is false. But it’s easy to demonstrate that Sullivan acted recklessly.

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