Can Democrats stop Trump's war in Iran?

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Netanyahu for decades really has seen a confrontation with Iran. He says eliminating the threat

of Iran upon Israel as a kind of crusade. The leaders of both the U.S. and Israel

are claiming credit for starting the war against Iran, which immediately exploded into a regional

conflict.

It's Tuesday, March 3rd, and this is here and now any time from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley.

Today on the show, Congress waited until after President Trump went to war with Iran to hold a

vote on war powers, and that vote is still forthcoming as of Tuesday afternoon.

But Democrats might have another chance to meaningfully oppose war by withholding money,

says Senator Jean Shaheen of the Armed Services Committee.

We are spending billions of dollars with the build-up in the Middle East and with the ongoing

operations, so at some point I assume they're going to have to come back to Congress.

Also, a top intelligence official who served in the first Trump administration

says the president's current inner circle is different than it was the first time around,

and is unlikely to challenge him even on matters of war.

And this circle of advisors is very limited and they are all people who owe their positions to him

and are very supportive. That conversation coming up at about 15 minutes.

But first, the State Department is now urging Americans in 14 countries to leave

as the war with Iran spreads across the Middle East.

More than 800 people have been killed in the conflict since the US and Israel attacked Iran

on Saturday. The vast majority of those deaths are in Iran.

But Israel is escalating the war in Lebanon today, retaliating against missile strikes from

Hezbollah with air strikes on Beirut, and a deployment of ground troops over the border into

southern Lebanon. We called up Emily Rose for the latest on the war's expanding front lines

and how it's going over so far in Israel. She's a correspondent for Reuters based in Jerusalem,

and she spoke to Robin Young.

Today, the streets of Jerusalem are absolutely vacant, completely empty.

Even stark it is, if you think about the fact that today is the Jewish holiday of

pouring when there would normally be these massive street parties that just go on for blocks

and it's completely empty, but for a few stranded tourists here and there.

And just a few merchants opening up their shops, but mostly things have been closed.

Well, the US State Department is urging Americans to leave 14 countries, including Israel.

Are you seeing, you say some stranded tourists there, but are you seeing more than just Americans

leaving? So what's interesting is that we're actually seeing reports of Israelis trying to get

back to Israel. This is something we saw in the last round as well in June with Iran.

Stranded is really trying to get ships and come through land crossings via Egypt.

So that's a phenomenon that we saw in the last round. We're seeing it again this round.

And I have been hearing that tourists are trying to leave and through land crossings and other

mechanisms, but mostly that interesting element as to see is really actually trying to get back home.

Yeah. Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave an interview on Fox News last night,

adamant that the war with Iran is a good thing.

It's high time that the people of the free societies understood that they have to act to

protect their freedom in our way of life. We're fighting by barons. Israel isn't the frontlight of

this battle against barbarism. In America, America under President Trump has entered this fight

to protect our civilization and to protect our common future. Emily, what is your sense of the

political support that he has for this war with Iran and, you know, a probable wider war?

So I think one thing that's important to mention is that Netanyahu for decades really has seen

a confrontation with Iran. He says eliminating the threat of Iran upon Israel as a kind of crusade.

He's really spoken about this at length. And we also have to remember that Israel is heading into

an election year and this week we saw many members of the Israeli opposition. So that is people

who would be running against Netanyahu in the elections come out and show support for this war,

calling it a just war, saying that they do have support. But I do want to say that in the

confrontation with Iran in June, there wasn't really a surge in support for Netanyahu after that

in the polls. Actually, what we saw was that Netanyahu's block his coalition still wouldn't have

the support it needs to form a government. And so we really do need to see how Israelis do

poll after this confrontation. If they do show that support and if we do see his coalition

getting enough support to form a government. Well, explain why things might be different now and then

or the same. But why? That was supposed to obliterate the nuclear capability, which obviously

didn't get obliterated. Does this feel more existential for people? This sense of it's maybe

about regime change and all that that brings, the destabilization. What are you hearing?

I've spoken to many Israelis who think that the origin of a lot of the threats against Israel,

via Iranian proxies, via Iranian direct actions pose a deep, deep threat to Israel and that's true.

But that being said, when we look at Israeli domestic politics, there's a lot more at play.

Netanyahu, there's still a good chunk of the population that discusses Netanyahu's possible

responsibility for October 7th and the failures there. And so there are a lot of other domestic

issues that might be at play when it comes down to elections. Those could still be at play.

But it feels a lot like those politics will still play out. And we really need to see what the

results of this military campaign will be in terms of their strategic results and their military

results. Well, just sticking with that. I mean, are you saying that there are people who might be

thinking in Israeli thinking that Netanyahu is doing this as a distraction from some of his own

problems? There is a little bit of analysis and discussion about possibly this being kind of

used to potentially delay budget passing, which might trigger early elections, though it's far

too soon to tell. And again, this is still seen as something that Israelis really see as a deep

threat to the Israeli state. Reuters, Emily Rose, Inja Rosalind, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Coming up next, a Democratic senator weighs in on what Congress could do to rein in President Trump.

Stick around.

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Democratic lawmakers are moving forward with what will likely be a symbolic vote on war powers.

Expected tomorrow in the Senate and later this week in the House,

symbolic because the war has already begun without any input from Congress.

Senator Jean Shaheen is a Democrat from New Hampshire. She's the ranking member of the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. This morning,

she spoke to Indira Lakshmanan.

So you've just come from a hearing with Elbridge Colby, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

What was your main takeaway?

I think he had a very difficult time in explaining why the nuclear defense strategy that he had

written was consistent with the action that the president is taking down Iran.

Unfortunately, the president hasn't put forward a clear strategy for what we're doing in Iran.

He hasn't really shared with the American people why it is we are undertaking this mission.

He campaigned on ending forever wars and yet what we're seeing in Venezuela,

here in Iran is putting us into potential entanglements that have no end point.

And now he's left open the option of putting boots on the ground in Iran.

Now Senator, you asked the Undersecretary of Defense just now in testimony whether there had

been efforts to dissuade Israel from attacking Iran. What were you able to learn in terms of

the administration's actions and whether this war was one of necessity or one of choice?

Well, Undersecretary Colby really didn't answer that question.

Now he's supposed to be the head of policy at the Department of Defense.

So one would hope that if we were making policy decisions about whether to go to war in a country

like Iran that the head of policy should be part of those discussions.

But he either wasn't part of the discussion or he refused to answer.

Yeah, Senator, the president did not seek congressional approval for this war.

Now you are trying to reign in his power after war has already started.

It doesn't look as if the Democrats have enough support from Republicans.

Are there any other levers at your disposal right now?

Well, the other area where Democrats have the ability to weigh in is in appropriations.

And what it appears the administration is going to need is additional funding to operate this war.

And they haven't yet told us how much it's going to cost.

But clearly we are spending billions of dollars with the build-up in the Middle East

and with the ongoing operations.

So at some point I assume they're going to have to come back to Congress.

And all this is at a time when Americans are struggling with the cost of living

when the administration has said we can't afford to help people with

keeping their health insurance because that's too expensive.

That it's not too expensive to go to war.

So I think there are real questions here about where the president's priorities are.

Interestingly, not everyone in the Democratic Party is opposed to the president on this.

Democratic Senator John Federman of Pennsylvania posted on X that every member in the U.S.

Senate agrees we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

I'm baffled why so many are unwilling to support the only action to achieve that.

What is your response to that?

Do you see this war as the only action that could have stopped Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon?

No, what we heard from the negotiations that had been ongoing for weeks now from

several negotiators, including the

negotiator from Amman, was that they were making real progress.

And what we know about something like the nuclear program is once they've got the knowledge on

how to enrich uranium, it's very hard to eliminate everybody who has that knowledge.

So the best way to ensure that they don't get a nuclear weapon is to have a negotiated settlement

and have inspections from the IAEA that come in and make sure that they are not enriching uranium,

that they are not building a nuclear weapon.

And unfortunately, President Trump turns his back on that negotiation process,

even though they seem to be making real progress.

President Trump told the New York Post yesterday that he would not rule out the

possibility of U.S. boots on the ground.

Based on what you're hearing from the administration you met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio

yesterday, your in testimony today, do you think there are going to be U.S. boots on the ground?

Well, I think it's unfortunate that they've refused to rule that out.

We have the experience of Afghanistan and Iraq when we tried

regime change and building a new country and it didn't go so well there.

So I think we've got to let the Iranians determine what their future is.

Senator Jean Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, is ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee

and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. Thank you so much, Senator Shaheen.

Good to talk to you.

Coming up, Bob and Young speaks with the former Deputy Director of National Intelligence

who served in the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations

about the shifting justifications for attacking Iran.

Stick around.

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terms and conditions apply. The why of the Iran War is still a muddled message for many.

To review the president said it was to stop Iran's nuclear capability, then he told the

Iranian people to in effect perform regime change by taking over their government. Then yesterday

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth contradicted him saying this is not a so-called regime change war.

And later as Senator Shaheen alluded to, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this.

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 and perhaps even higher those killed.

And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't have it.

Let's bring in Beth Sanner, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence under Trump 1 and Biden,

currently the Director for Geopolitics of the Consulting Group, International Capital Strategies

Beth, just your thoughts first on Rubio. We had to because Israel was going to your thoughts.

Well, I think this is more about the question, not of why the big picture of why is I think

pretty settled. It's the why now. And today, President Trump and the Oval Office just a few

minutes ago contradicted Secretary of State Rubio when asked this very question. And he said,

well, actually, if it was anything, I pushed them the Israelis.

And so I think more muddled, more confused. First, I guess just very quickly, the reason this

matters is a couple of reasons. One is international law. You have to have a rationale to attack

another country. An imminent threat is specifically said. And I think that's why we see Marco Rubio

really focused on this and why Congress is asking this question. And it makes a difference because

if you're not prepared, if you're not knowing your end goals, if it just seems like you're making it

up as you go, then why is the House on fire? Why are we doing this now? Well, does it also matter

because of ego? And what you're just saying, we hear Trump reacting to this notion that Rubio

put out there, which Trump supporters reacted to fiercely on, for instance, Marjorie Taylor

gains Twitter, Taylor Greens Twitter to X feed. You know, her followers, his followers were saying,

really, we did this because of Israel. You told us the same thing, you know, really tail wagging

the dog. So, you know, ego does get involved in it. Yeah, I guess, you know, but I think that

this is really the fact that we don't still know the answer to this very basic question of,

why are we here? Why have six members of our military died? Why are we spending billions of

dollars? And as they say in the military lingo, a trading future readiness, which means, you know,

we're using a lot of the munitions and air defenses that we need for other things, including

Ukraine, including China. Yeah. Well, as you said, Trump just a little while ago,

contradicted Rubio and said, no, it was me pushing Israel to do this. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin

Nanyaho last night told Foxy Sean Hannity, it's him that's been pushing American administrations

for decades to take action. Let's listen. How's spoken about it for decades? And I try to

try to persuade successive American administrations to take firm action. And President

Trump in his first and did. Okay, so that gets us back a little into the the ego bucket, like,

you know, to mail world leaders disagreeing over whose idea this was. But also, you were in that

Trump White House there in 2020, when the US assassinated Iran in general, Soleimani,

your read on Netanyahu's take. Well, Netanyahu also laughed when it was suggested that it was the

tail wagging the dog. And then he went on to that explanation. I mean, you know, look,

do you become president of the United States? Anyone? I consider President Biden in this as well

without a pretty healthy ego. No, you do not. And so I think that all of these people who are in

these positions of power and, you know, frankly, President Trump coming back almost from the political

dead, I would say, you know, you have to have this strong ego. But I would also say this

administration is very different than the first. And this circle of advisors is very limited.

And they are all people who owe their positions to him and are very supportive. Yeah.

That's Sandra. We're going to have to have you back. But we should say that many analysts are

saying that the the answer to the why now is that agents from the US have been tracking Iranian

leaders for months. They knew there was going to be this vulnerable meeting of all of the top leaders.

And it was the moment to strike. But we will pick this up with you again. Beth San, our former Deputy

Director of National Intelligence. Thank you so much. Thank you.

That's our show for today. Let's more on the war with Iran at here at Now.org and NPR.org.

Make sure you're following this show so you keep up with our coverage. We'll have more tomorrow.

Today's stories were produced by Will Walkie, Jill Ryan, and Hopsa Kareishi. Our editors were

Todd Munt, Michael Skato, and Cat Welch. Technical direction from Caleb Green and James Trow.

Our theme music is by Mike Misketto, Max Liebman and me, Chris Bentley,

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as executive producer is Alan Price. Here and now any time comes from NPR and WBUR Boston.

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