Iran

Matt Duss, Carnegie Endowment,  New Republic -  We’ve blown up a lot of things. We’ve killed a lot of people—killed a lot of Iranian leaders, including some who, from my understanding, could potentially have helped negotiate an off-ramp and an end to this war. It’s unclear to me that we’ve actually advanced American security at all.

I think we’ve done the opposite. Clearly we’ve managed to raise the price of oil. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz and threatened shipping through the strait, which raises the price of oil even more. But again, if you ask me what we’ve achieved: the problem is that the Trump administration has not really articulated any clear goals here, other than this nonsensical claim that we’re trying to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Iran was nowhere close to having the capability of producing a nuclear weapon. Our own intelligence services believe that Iran had not decided to pursue a nuclear weapon, even if they were keeping that option open. Unfortunately, I think this war could make that decision for them. So again, you ask what we’ve achieved—I think we’ve achieved, unfortunately, nothing good at all for the American people.

The Hilll -   President Trump ruled out a ceasefire with Iran on Friday, telling reporters, “we’re not looking to do that.” “Look, we can have dialogue, but I don’t want to do a ceasefire,” Trump told reporters outside White House. “You don’t do a ceasefire when you’re obliterating the other side. They don’t have a navy. They don’t have an air force.”

“They don’t have any spotters. They don’t have antiaircraft. They don’t have radar, and their leaders have all been killed at every level,” he added.