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- [00:07]
Senator Jeanne Shaheen
The two most powerful air forces in the world will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace.
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Hanna Rosen
Operation Epic Fury continues, with more casualties, more Middle Eastern countries being drawn in, and more swagger from Defense Secretary Pete
- [00:25]
Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Hexseth flying over their capital, flying over the irgc, Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only US And Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it's over.
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Hanna Rosen
The administration seems to have a great appetite for describing the theater of war in the moment. Leaders killed, warships sunk, airspace, conquered, death
- [00:57]
Senator Jeanne Shaheen
and destruction from the sky all day long.
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Hanna Rosen
But much less so for the more abstract questions of the war. Why did the US Go in in the first place? Why is American blood and money worth the cost? And what is the ultimate goal? I'm Hanna Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. Later in the show, I talk to Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, about what legislators can do to get answers. President Trump, after all, took the US to war without Congress's approval, barely notifying them. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Hill on Monday, he made it seem like Israel had more say in the matter than the branch of the US Government that has the actual power to declare war. Although when Trump was asked the following day if Israel had forced his hand, he replied essentially that he had a gut feeling that this was the right moment. We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first.
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
They were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were
- [02:05]
Hanna Rosen
going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.
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Missy Ryan
You know, it's been out there for many years that Israel wanted to take care of the Iranian threat as they thought about it.
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Hanna Rosen
Atlantic staff writer Missy Ryan.
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Missy Ryan
But there's been a lot of reticence from US Leaders in the past because of the fears of the potential effects of unleashing this conflict.
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Hanna Rosen
Missy spent years as a foreign correspondent based in Baghdad covering the war in Iraq. She now writes about defense and foreign policy for the magazine. I talked to her about how Trump got past that reticence. Missy, welcome to the show.
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Missy Ryan
Thank you.
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Hanna Rosen
Were you surprised that we struck at all, or were you surprised that we coordinated this closely with Israel?
- [02:51]
Missy Ryan
I don't think either of those things was particularly surprising given the months of lead up that we've seen. On a military level, there's been a shifting of military buildup. You know, they had two aircraft carriers, they positioned extra air defenses, extra planes, extra ships in the region. And President Trump himself has been kind of hinting that it was time that they do something, as he said, to take care of Iran's nuclear threat, which is a little confusing, cuz he did strikes last year that he said at that time completely obliterated their nuclear capability. But larger than that, he also said, you know, we can't let Iran be this bad actor in the world in the way it's been in past decades. And that was a reference to, you know, the long history of, you know, shadow war between the United States and Iran and the attacks dating Back to the 1980s on American personnel and assets. You know, it wasn't surprising that this happened because we had kind of the prologue in the first administration where the president would occasionally talk about doing something against Iran. But there were kind of constrainers around him at that time, and that's no longer the case. I think it's also important to mention that President Trump at this time is kind of feeling his oats in terms of foreign policy. He has a lot more confidence in his second term and his instincts. And so after the success in the 12 Day War last year where the United States and Israel struck Iran, struck nuclear sites, after the success in toppling Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, I think Trump comes to the situation, this conversation between him and the Israeli leadership about whether or not to strike Israel. He comes to it with a lot of confidence in what American military might can do, about what he personally can do. And I think it's just a very different moment for his presidency and for him as a leader than we saw in the first term.
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Hanna Rosen
It's interesting because some senators and some critics have characterized Israel as controlling or driving the foreign policy. It sounds like you don't necessarily think Israel had as great a role as people are saying today.
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Missy Ryan
I think they, they do have a, in kind of making the case for this being the moment. You know, Trump has a complicated relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu. Like many American presidents before him. Most American presidents before him have had, you know, on one hand, Trump, you know, has acted strongly and kind of broken with past president repeatedly on US Policy vis a vis Israel. Like he, you know, in his first term, he recognized the Golan Heights, he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem. He, you know, has had a very different position vis a vis the whole question of the west bank than the Biden administration, which was constantly kind of trying to constrain Israeli action in the west bank and chide the Israelis publicly for what they were doing in the west bank and in Gaza after the Gaza war began in 2023. So he has been Very supportive of Israel in most ways, but. But at the same time, he's also occasionally shown publicly that he gets annoyed with Bibi. I think he felt like Israel has at times undermined his agenda, and his agenda was striking big, sweeping deals that he could claim as victory. So, you know, I think clearly it's a close relationship, and they see shared interest. But I think that Trump also had his own reasons for wanting to do this. I think he sees it as showing himself to be the president that other presidents were too afraid to be. You know, that Ayatollah and the Islamic Republic has been, you know, a thorn in the side of the United States for decades, and no other president could do it, and Trump did.
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Hanna Rosen
Just because Israel's role in this decision making is likely to be very closely scrutinized by a lot of different factions on the right and the left. I just want us to listen to what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, said, and analyze it, keeping in mind the caveat that Trump himself at a press conference said, no, they didn't force my hand. If anything, I might have forced Israel's hand. So. So keeping in mind that Trump forcefully denied it, I just want to listen to what Marco Rubio said and get your brain on dissecting it.
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
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Hanna Rosen
Can you analyze that? Because it sounds both like, yes, we did hit Iran because of Israel and they forced our hand. But, no, we were doing our own thing, and it's not because of Israel.
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Missy Ryan
So, yeah, it is a little confusing, to be honest. And it's interesting to me, because how can it be an imminent threat if, like, the imminent threat is your partner that you're doing this with? And the administration is pushing back strongly on that. And Rubio is hanging most of the urgency around this as what he's describing as a tipping point for Iran's ballistic missile capability. And what he is saying is a buildup where they're adding hundreds of missiles every month. And he's describing it as a tipping point in terms of, you know, they're getting more and more powerful every month, not just on the drones, which they kind of now, at this point have an endless supply of, but ballistic missiles. And he says that at a certain point, the US And Israeli ability to produce enough air defense interceptors to keep up with The Iranian production, you know, to do that will slip out of their hands.
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Hanna Rosen
I need one more level of interpretation. So to a Pentagon person, is that convincing? Like, are you following the logic or is it a strain?
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Missy Ryan
I follow the logic because, you know, actually, my colleague Nancy Youssef and I reported in an article that posted this week, you know, the United States does have a problem in terms of its air defense supplies. It has only a finite number of air defense interceptor missiles, which are the missiles that you fire up to kind of collide with the incoming, incoming enemy missiles. And Iran has something like in the order of 2,000 medium range ballistic missiles that can reach Israel and 6 to 8,000 short range ballistic missiles that can reach the Gulf and the United States stockpile of air defense missiles. The number is classified, but it is much smaller than those numbers. And so the United States has some other systems it can use for drones. But, you know, there is a deficit that the United States already has, and the production of those interceptors, which are very high tech, is much slower. And so it is true that they have this deficit. But the thing that was puzzling to me is the Iranians have been building up their ballistic missile supplies for a long time now. And that was, you know, before October 7th, before the wars that came after that. That was before they got into this kind of cycle of conflict with Israel and then the United States, where they were actually expending a lot of those missiles. So you would think that they maybe have less now than they did. I don't know that to be the case, but in any event, the calculus there is somewhat confusing. But we are not privy to the intelligence and the precise numbers on each side. And you have to think the United States has pretty precise numbers. So that's, that's the argument that Rubio is making. But I will add it's interesting because, you know, he kind of pivoted to the ballistic missiles following this briefing that he did for congressional leadership. But, you know, Pete Hegseth was talking about the nuclear program. Trump himself has talked about the nuclear program. And then, you know, Hegseth also was talking about retribution for attacks that the Iranians launched in Iraq against US Forces back in the day. So there's this whole, you know, panoply, cornucopia of different reasons. And none of them feel to me
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Hanna Rosen
immediate like none of them answer, because I, as you're, as you're talking, I'm counting five. We've got nuclear weapons, ballistic weapons, you know, a worry about our own munitions. We haven't mentioned Regime change yet regime change.
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Missy Ryan
And also, like defending protesters and, you
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Hanna Rosen
know, I mean, the right and Israel. Right and Israel and a preemptive launch. So what do you make of this constantly shifting menu of rationale?
- [11:36]
Missy Ryan
I think that they were ready to do it and that the circumstances were right for Trump. This may not have been the ideal time from, you know, a purely military perspective in terms of when is Iran at its weakest? There's no doubt Iran is much weaker than it was in 2022 or the beginning of 2023, that's for sure. You know, its proxies are decimated. You know, Israel has talked a lot about the volume of missile launchers that it's taken out, missile sites, all of that. So, you know, from that perspective, it's very true that it is a conducive time. From that perspective, you know, at the end of the day, I think this is more about President Trump and him feeling more ready to use the American military and use military force in a way that other presidents haven't wanted to and in a way that he thinks is shaping his legacy. This is, I think, a new element of Trump's foreign policy doctrine that we're seeing here because he and the people around him are willing to take risks and they're willing to kind of go with their gut in a new way. And they don't have the people like Jim Mattis, they don't have the people like Mark Esper being like, sir, I think we need to think about the second, third order effects here. You're seeing those impulses come to life in a different way.
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Hanna Rosen
You have covered American wars in the Middle east for such a long time. The idea of war with Iran has always been hanging out there in the background, sort of Iran as an actor. And now that it's happened in, I would say, a somewhat abrupt way, I mean, we knew about the buildup, but it's not like we got a long explanation, a long debate. How does it land with you?
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Missy Ryan
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I actually felt it feels a little bit more familiar because, you know, Israel already assassinated, you know, killed, struck Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, the Hezbollah commander. The United States already sent the Delta Force into Caracas to take Nicolas Maduro. So I kind of feel like I'm like boiling frog a little bit in that none of it is as shocking as it might have been if you hadn't had this kind of incremental lead up over the course of several years. But really, this is like the big one that we all talked about and feared for so long. I remember being in Iraq in 2007, 2008, 2009. People would talk about, oh, the Bush administration really just wanted to keep going and go to Tehran. And that just seemed kind of a sort of, you know, out of the realm of possibility to be absurd, you know, because it would just be so crazily risky. And now, you know, you have a scenario that isn't quite there, but very close to it.
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Hanna Rosen
Right. Like, if someone had told you this in 2010 in Iraq, would it have felt surreal?
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Missy Ryan
Oh, yeah, 100%. That's why I say, like, that's why I feel like the boiling frog. Because on one hand, I was at that time living with the impacts of a huge use of American military force. When I first went to Iraq, there were 180,000American troops in Iraq. And we're not doing that. And so it's not like there hasn't been a big, very risky and ill conceived use of the American military in the Middle east before, because there has been, but this is a different setting, it's a different country. And also we learned a lot from that war and, or, you know, we thought we learned a lot. And, you know, there are figures within the Trump administration, including J.D. vance, who fought in those wars and came home and were like, no, those were dumb. My friends died for no reason. And so I think that their hope clearly is that they're doing it in a smarter, more prudent, like, less direct risk to Americans type of way. But I, you know, we obviously just, I can't know how it'll play out.
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Hanna Rosen
After the break, I talk to New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, I ask what, if anything, Congress can do now that the US Is already involved in this conflict with Iran. Hours before the Senate voted against the War Powers Resolution this week, which would have tried to limit President Trump's power to use military force without explicit authorization from Congress. I talked to Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Senator Shaheen, welcome to the show.
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Thank you.
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Hanna Rosen
She's the top ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and I started out by asking her if she'd received any kind of advance warning about the strikes in Iran.
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, I didn't get any. There was a briefing with the so called Gang of Eight last week before the strikes happened over the weekend. And my understanding from talking to some of the people who were in that briefing is that there was no clear explanation of what was coming, but just a hint that some action might be taken.
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Hanna Rosen
And how unusual is that? Just put that in some historical Context for us.
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, that has not been the case at any time since I've been here. And whether it was Republican or Democratic presidents, the history and tradition has been to brief at least the leaders of the House and Senate and the relevant committees before an action like this is taken.
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Hanna Rosen
Right. So the one time when an explanation came is when Marco Rubio came to the Hill after the war had started, and that's when he mentioned that Israel's role in the attack on Iran to the press. Were you surprised by that explanation?
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
I was. But as you know, a number of explanations have been given by the president, by other members of the Cabinet about the reasons for the war. And I think that's one of the things that raises real concerns, not just in Congress, but among the American people, about what the strategy is, what the end game is, what we're trying to do. I don't think anyone, or at least nobody I know, is concerned that the ayatollah is no longer in charge. So I don't think that anyone mourns his loss. The question is, what happens next? What's the end game? What are we trying to do? And are we in charge of our foreign policy? Or as Secretary Rubio suggested, are we responding to Israel and what they want for their foreign policy?
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Hanna Rosen
So when you said the American people would be concerned, you had put it, who controls America's foreign policy? What do you exactly mean? What did you make of that rationale that we were responding to Israel?
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, it's a concern. The question is, did we ever try to dissuade Israel from taking this action? Were we as prepared as we should be? I'm looking at scenes coming from the Middle east, from Americans who have been stranded in countries across the Middle east, and it doesn't seem like there's been any provision for the fact that that was going to happen or plans for how to evacuate Americans as attacks have increased. So I think all of those are concerns and also just transparency with the American people, with Congress, about why President Trump thought this was necessary. Again, what he's trying to accomplish now. They've given some limited military goals of the campaign, but no real explanation for why now, why this was necessary and what the end game is, what the strategy is we're trying to accomplish.
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Hanna Rosen
Right. So when you said the American people would be concerned, the concern is that we're doing another country's bidding or putting another country's concerns before.
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, I think the American people are concerned because Donald Trump campaigned saying he was going to end forever wars. Right now My constituents are concerned about the cost of living. And what we're seeing as the result of this action is not only are we spending a lot of money in the Middle east, but now gasoline prices are also going up, so people are going to be feeling even more strain. Again, none of that has been explained to the American people in a way that says you need to sacrifice in order to do this, because America was under threat of attack. There's no intelligence that I've seen that suggests that America was under threat of attack by Iran.
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Hanna Rosen
So do you have a sense of what the President actually does want from this war and why now?
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
No. No. And again, I think we've heard a lot of different explanations, but there's been no overriding explanation to the American people or to Congress about what he's trying to do here.
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Hanna Rosen
So now we're in this war. So I want to talk more about the role Congress could play now. The vote on the War Powers Resolution. Why is that important at this moment, given that the war's already started? We're in it. There are casualties. The Ayatollah is gone.
- [21:19]
Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, when our founding fathers and mothers set up our government in the beginning and wrote the Constitution, one of the things they did was give the power to declare war to Congress, not to the President, because there was real concern about whether we should give that kind of power to one individual leader or whether it should be the result of the will of the people of the country who are reflected in the Congress. And unfortunately, this President hasn't been willing to come to Congress not only to brief us about what his actions are, but to ask for an authorization for use of military force, as has been done in the past. So I think it is appropriate for Congress to take action to rein in this President, who doesn't seem to be concerned about what Congress and the American people think about his actions. With respect to going to war, it feels important.
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Hanna Rosen
It's something we write about at the Atlantic all the time, but it also feels abstract at this moment, given that we're in it. So I'm wondering what would constitute a responsible check on the President's power? Like, what would that actually look like? Would it be about the future of the war, how the war unfolds? Or do you think of this as a symbolically important vote?
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, sadly, I think it's not going to pass, so it is only going to be a symbolic vote. But Congress has another ability to rein in the President, and that's the appropriations process. We have not yet heard how much this War is costing, but it's very clear it was not budgeted for. And so at some point the President's going to have to come back to Congress and ask for funding. And at that point or before we have the ability to get our questions answered.
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Hanna Rosen
I see. So responsible check on presidential power would look like post war engagement about expenses, about what we're willing to do in Iran to have sort of buy in from the American people.
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, a responsible check on the President's power would be if the majority in Congress were willing to take back what is Congress's authority to declare war. And unfortunately we haven't seen a willingness from our Republican colleagues to do that.
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Hanna Rosen
Yeah, I mean it's not the first time that Congress and the President have struggled over a war declaration. The War Powers Resolution grew out of Vietnam. I'm wondering what's different now about how the current executive branch is handling war and what Congress is oversight role is.
- [23:58]
Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, one thing that's different is we have all three branches of government controlled by the Republicans. It's very difficult for the opposition to be able to move legislation or to raise concerns. What else is different is that this White House is not briefing Congress. Not only are they not briefing Democrats, they're not briefing Republicans either. So it appears that this White House doesn't think they need to talk to Congress at all.
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Hanna Rosen
Are there other ways you think the Democrats could be fighting that they're not?
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Well, I think the most important way we can be fighting is by making sure that we elect enough Democrats in November to take back the House and to make gains in the Senate. I'd love to have us take back the Senate too because that's the way we're going to curb this President's power.
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Hanna Rosen
Do you have a name for his foreign policy? Like what would you call it? We seem to be going in, extracting leaders and sort of. That's the extent of it. Like how would you describe what the foreign policy is now? Cuz it's clearly, it's not non interventionist. We're intervening. I'm just wondering how you think of it.
- [25:07]
Senator Jeanne Shaheen
I think of it as very inconsistent. You know, on the one hand the administration talks about the greatest threat to the United States is the competition from China, the military threat from China. And yet we just heard from the Under Secretary of Policy at the Department of Defense who was before the Armed Services Committee talking about how we need to come to some sort of a mutual understanding with China. He used different language, but that was essentially what he was saying. Well, well that's inconsistent. And when this president is making policy decisions around things like shutting down our foreign assistance program, shutting off our global health programs and allowing China to come in and pick up those programs and present to our former countries we were working with that China is the reliable ally and people can't count on the United States, that is not a consistent foreign policy that benefits the national security of the United States. Right now, the White House has said there are 14 countries that Americans need to leave in the Middle east. In those 14 countries, we only have six ambassadors and only four of them have career and diplomatic experience. We have two ambassadors in Lebanon and Israel who are political appointees who have no diplomatic experience. And yet we've got Americans all across the Middle east who are saying, I need help to get out of here. I'm being told to leave. I can't get flights. There's no evacuation plan, and we have nobody in the embassy to help them. So that is not in America's interest. That is not consistent with American foreign policy that benefits the national security of Americans and makes us safer.
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Hanna Rosen
Well, Senator Shaheen, thank you so much for joining us today.
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Senator Jeanne Shaheen
Thank you.
- [27:12]
Hanna Rosen
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Rosie Hughes and Janae West. It was edited by Kevin Townsend. Rob Smirciak engineered and provided original music. Sam Fentress fact checked. Claudina Baid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. Listeners, if you enjoy the show, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to the atlantic@theatlantic.com listener. I'm Hanna Rosen. Thank you for listening.