As we enter the 5th day of war with Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given no indication that the violence will end anytime soon. During a press conference this morning, he said that American forces can deliver “death and destruction all day long.” But, why are we bombing Iran in the first place?
Jen is joined by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) to discuss the four proclaimed justifications for the war: regime change, stifling Iran’s nuclear capabilities, curbing Iran’s ballistic capabilities, and — most recently — pushing back against the threat of the Iranian Navy. Despite all these “reasons” for igniting a new forever war, Sen. Warner claims that Iran poses no imminent threat to America.
Mark R. Warner is a U.S. Senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Sen. Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008 and reelected to a third term in November 2020. He serves as Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence and as a member of the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting.
Jen Rubin:
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. I am delighted to have with us Senator Mark Warner from Virginia. He is, of course, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and if anyone knows what’s going on, he does. Senator, welcome.
Sen. Mark R. Warner
Thank you, Jen.
Jen Rubin
What do you know about the purpose of the war, the expected length of the war, the cost of the war, the plan for protecting Americans? All of this seems incredibly vague.
Sen. Mark R. Warner
Well, Jen, we have, now heard four purposes of the war in the last week. Originally, it was going to be taking out Iran’s nuclear capabilities that the president claimed had been obliterated 7 months ago. Then it was about the ballistic missile capacity of Iran, which is growing. but posed no imminent threat to America. And then… Recently, we heard a brand new one, which was getting rid of the Iranian Navy. And then, we have heard from the president repeatedly the idea of regime change. And while I shed no tears for the death of the Supreme Leader and the brutal Iranian leadership.
I worry… you know, if the president is calling for regime change, and the Iranian people go to the streets. What happens if 100,000 Iranians protests on the streets of Tehran. And the RRGC, the Iranian military, killed 5,000, 10,000, 20,000. Are we then… you know, what will be our moral obligation, you know, to those protesters. So, in terms of the… the goals, there is no clarity. In terms of the length. The one thing that is clear is that the briefs I’ve received, the lengths keep getting slightly longer. We’ve already lost Six brave soldiers. And there is expectation of more casualties. So we don’t have a notion on the length. on the plan of how we get Americans out, you know, I am a… You know, as you know, I am a rock-solid supporter of Israel and its right to defend itself.
But I believe in this case, the conflict was more dictated by… Israel’s timeline. than by America’s timeline, but even with that acknowledgement that I think has been made by Secretary Rubio. We have known, since the President has been building this armada up since January, that something was going to happen, and why there was not a better plan laid out in terms of getting Americans in the region out, you know… 12, I think 12, 14 nations have been affected. Many of them not even having an American ambassador, and, you know, I hesitate to make this comparison. But It’s starting to seem a little bit like America’s disastrous exec… leaving of Afghanistan, which, frankly, my Republican friends pilloried President Biden appropriately in many ways. But there was this timeline that was coming around. Folks knew the timeline. Why was there not more preparation in place?
Jen Rubin
Because we don’t know, really, the purpose, and we don’t know the length, I assume there’s no way of estimating what this is going to cost us, but we’re talking billions, I would assume, if not tens of billions of dollars.
Sen. Mark R. Warner:
I think you’re right. I think, you know, we have… And I’m not saying it’s not been in the public press, where we’ve had our munitions drawn down by our needs in Ukraine, and our allies’ needs now here, and many of these munitions. already used previously against the Hutis, and I have… you know, I have no… Bone to pick with that, but we have to maintain our… our… forces in the Indo-Pacific as well, but there are choices being made.
When you have, in this case a war of choice, and this is a war of choice by the president, which I believe he absolutely has to come to Congress and ask for a declaration of war. This is not a reaction to an attack against us, this is a war of choice.
But there is also, as you pointed out, Jen, there’s a monetary choice, and this is an administration that has chosen to get rid of support for healthcare subsidies, has gotten rid of many food assistance, has cut back on research to our universities, will soon have the biggest cut in Medicaid in the history of the program. There is a little bit of a question here about you know. If the president’s concerned about affordability, which he thinks is, one, with all these cuts to healthcare, and now we have a circumstance If the Iranians, which they probably will, try to, you know, close down the Straits of Hormuz, where a lot of the oil passes through, I think oil prices have already jacked up to You know, in the mid-’80s, we could see a $100 or $150 oil, and that will directly translate into You know, $3, $4 a gallon gasoline. Again, let me make clear — the brutal Iranian… Leadership has been gotten rid of, but there has to be a plan of what next. And my fear is. at least in the briefings I’ve been in, is that in many cases, the fear was always. the next crowd could be worse even than the Supreme Leader.
Jen Rubin
It’s right. it’s hard to see that the IRGC wouldn’t be even more resilient, stronger if, the civilian leadership gets, leveled. So let me ask a slightly different question, which goes to whether this was necessary at all. We were in talks with the Iranians, and the Omanians seemed to think that we were If not making a deal momentarily, we were at least making progress. Had we stayed in those negotiations, would any of this been necessary?
Sen. Mark R. Warner
Jen, I don’t know. And whether it was threats to Israel or threats to America. None of the circumstances that I’m aware of, at least, would have radically changed in another 30 or 60 days. I would almost make the opposite argument that in early January. when the Iranian people rightfully rose up against this awful regime, and they’re on the streets in the millions, and the president promised, don’t worry, America will be there.
If he would have struck at that point, I would have still raised questions. But my at least sympathy for the strike would have been much higher, because we would have been backing the Iranian people, but he was unable to do that for two reasons. One. our forces that should have been in the region. The aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford, was off the coast of Venezuela, and I was just on Sunday with all of the… many of the families who were were on that… who have been on the… families of the people who’ve been deployed have been now 9 months, deployed much longer than normal. Those sailors will do their duty, but on top of that, if we’d struck in January, we could have had more assistance from our European allies.
But they were then concerned, rightfully so, about the President’s plans for Greenland. So the idea that you can act on these issues you know, individually, everything in the world, whether we like it or not, is interconnected. I would have still raised questions, but I would have had a much more sympathetic View at that point, because, my gosh, maybe a targeted strike might have actually allowed the brave Iranian people to change the regime. Instead, we didn’t take action. 30,000, and I think, frankly, even more, Iranians were killed, and now we’re a few months later. And I worry, again, if the Iranians go to the street. will we be there? I don’t know. And I don’t… and again, please, for your viewers, I’m not advocating putting boots on the ground in Iran, but these are the kind of questions That, administration needs to… think through. We are the most powerful country in the world. We bear that burden, and we have to think through these Options and responsibilities before we act.
Jen Rubin
Let me ask one question before we get to the War Powers Resolution, which apparently is going to get a vote tomorrow. How confident are you that if there were some urgent issue, China makes a play for Taiwan, or some other, really, critical event, that we would be able to cover ourselves in both places. Have we overcommitted to one area for a discretionary war, without kind of a game plan for those incidents that may not be at our discretion?
Sen. Mark R. Warner
Well, Jen, I would say this. As we saw with the… extraction of Maduro, as we saw when we assisted Israel in the 12-Day War, as we’ve seen even in this activity. You know, the American military is second to none. I have absolute confidence. And the men and women who… who are… have that responsibility. I think any nation that would think that we are stretched too thin would be a huge mistake of that nation. I trust our military, but again. We can only ask them to do so much. But I think we are prepared for all possibilities. But… you know, I think about the stories I heard. about the folks on the USS Ford, our largest aircraft carrier. They’ve been deployed now 8 or 9 months, they’re supposed to be back in 6 months. I hear from sailors, the toilets aren’t working. Now, that’s not going to stop people from fighting. But that does mean the stress that it’s put on our military is extraordinary, and I just don’t think we should stress them if American interests are not facing an imminent threat.
Jen Rubin:
Exactly. There is going to be a vote, I believe, on the War Powers Resolution. What would it do, and are there any Republicans, perhaps other than Rand Paul, who have an interest in actually establishing Congress’s role in this war-making?
Sen. Mark R. Warner
Many of my supporters are always upset with me, because I try to be… because I so firmly believe that bipartisan solutions are better. But I’ve been so disappointed by my Republican friends, who I know love our country, who have not been willing to stand up. You know, I’m gonna support the War Powers Resolution Act that would have to go through the House as well, and then the President would probably veto, but it would at least send a signal that you know, the president doesn’t have arbitrary power to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. And… you know, you gotta stay hopeful, but I don’t expect a lot of my Republican friends will step up, even though Jen, privately. I think many are aghast.
Jen Rubin
Well, unfortunately, they will own the results if they don’t support the War Powers Act, so they might want to think a little bit down the road. Let me end with this. In addition to the cost of all of this. We do have, as you mentioned, an oil problem, and Brent oil is already past 80, other metrics are going up. This is going to aggravate the inflation problem, that Americans were already upset about. Have you heard anything from the President about any way to mitigate this additional cost on Americans?
Sen. Mark R. Warner
Well, I heard just before we got together, that potentially he’s going to try to have the U.S. Navy escort tankers in the region. And I don’t… I don’t know what that means. Is it just U.S. tankers? Is it other nations’ tankers? Are we extending our forces beyond even what they’ve already been stretched? And again, I go back to where you know, we started. If you’re gonna go down this path, if you’re gonna have a war of choice, not a war that you are forced into because of an enemy’s action, but a war of choice.
You should have the opportunity to think through all these options before you act. And at least thus far, whether it’s getting our people out of the Middle East, whether they’re in Saudi, Israel, Emiratis. Whether it’s how we think about if they close the Straits of Hormuz. are most… you know, I have not seen that, and I… and again. My critique of this president is that He thinks about everything as a single episodic real estate deal. And you win or lose on every deal, as opposed to thinking about how this… you know, the world’s a kind of messy place, and it is all interconnected.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. I’m just curious, I’m sure the Senate phones are ringing. What’s been the reaction from people in Virginia? Are people applauding this, or are people—
Sen. Mark R. Warner
People are concerned. They’re concerned about another war getting started, where there’s no way out. And, and, and today, You know. It’s… it’s dozens, if not hundreds, of people calling in from the Middle East, saying they were on travel, or they were working, or they were in the region, and they’re saying, oh my gosh, I fear for my safety. I mean, my understanding is that at least one of our embassies have been hit. Yes.
You know, where’s the plan? I think this is the problem that I hope people in politics would acknowledge. We gotta acknowledge when even your own team doesn’t do well. You know, Joe Biden screwed up the border. the Biden administration, you know, we made so many mistakes in getting out of Afghanistan. I just wish my Republican friends would acknowledge the same thing. If we’re gonna start a war of choice, figuring out how we get Americans out of the region, and what the goal of the war should be, is not… It’s not a partisan… I’m not making a partisan claim, I’m just saying what… what should be in our country’s best interest.
Jen Rubin
Well, they often don’t do what they said. Donald Trump, of course, ran on no more wars and no more open-ended regime change escapades, and that appears to be what we’ve got. Thank you so much for spending time with us, Senator, as always. And, when someone over there figures out exactly what the purpose of the war is, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.
Sen. Mark R. Warner
But again, and again, Jen, You know, our country’s better than this, and so we all just need to, like, you know, keep the pressure on me, keep the pressure on all your elected officials. You know, when we’ve lost 6 soldiers already, and who knows how many more, you ought to demand answers from all of us, so thanks.
Jen Rubin
Very good. Thanks so much, Senator. We’ll look forward to seeing you next time.
Sen. Mark R. Warner
Yes, ma’am.
