The blowback against the Trump administration for its blundering into disaster in Iran is growing. While it has been clear to those paying attention that this government is flying blind when it comes to planning and strategy, this is now being acknowledged by a growing portion of the country. After a closed-door briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee by unnamed administration officials March 10, Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters that he left the briefing “as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate… I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war,” he said. “My questions have been unanswered, and I will demand answers because the American people deserve to know.”
Blumenthal also warned that “We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, who attended the same briefing, echoed this sentiment, saying that the meeting “confirmed to me it’s totally incoherent. We are not gonna be able to achieve any of our stated objectives.” He went on to call it “a disaster of epic proportions, it’s already getting Americans killed, it’s driving up prices here at home, harder-line leadership… are strengthening in Iran, and there’s really no way we’re going to be able to destroy their nuclear program because most of its buried underground unless we mount a ground invasion, which would be even more disastrous.”
Murphy further discussed the closed-door briefing in a post on X, where he claimed that the administration’s war goals “DO NOT involve destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” and “‘regime change’ is also NOT on the list.” Instead, the stated aims include “destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories,” he wrote.
