Rich Lowry assesses the U.S.-Iran conflict as tactically successful yet politically perilous, citing a Reuters-Ipsos poll where 59% disapprove of strikes amid rising gas prices near $4. He criticizes President Trump's "seat of the pants" approach for bypassing Congress and allies, arguing that while a full ground invasion is unlikely, securing the Strait of Hormuz may require troop deployment to prevent national humiliation. Lowry also defends voter ID measures against federalization risks and asserts that preventing a nuclear-armed Iran remains inevitable despite decades of hostility since 1979. [Automatically generated summary]
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Welcome back for a discussion on the ongoing conflict with Iran as well as other political news of the week.
We're joined now by Rich Lowry, who's the editor-in-chief of the National Review.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
Hi, thanks for having me.
There have been several developments over the weekend with those longer-range missiles launched by Iran, as well as the president saying that Iran only has 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on their power facilities.
What is your assessment of the state of affairs in our war with Iran right now?
Well, it's mixed.
We've had great, displayed great technical proficiency and have had great tactical victories, terms killing top Iranian leaders, diminishing their ability to launch missiles and drones.
So I don't think the military element of this, I don't think time is on Iran's side.
I think they have a math problem and eventually we might not get them to zero, but we're going to really significantly degrade their ability to hit their neighbors and to threaten the Strait of Hormuz.
But politically and economically, time is not on our side, on Trump's side.
Obviously, every day the Strait of Hormuz is closed and you have energy infrastructure threatened across the region.
You see upward pressure not just on the price of oil, but all sorts of other things, most notably fertilizer.
So the Strait needs to reopen as soon as possible.
That's going to be a big challenge.
Trump is trying to threaten them out of it, their grip on the strait in various ways.
One, threatening Karak Island, obliterating their military facilities on that island a couple days ago.
Now this threat against the power plants in Iran, I'm not sure he can threaten this regime out of anything.
I think if the strait is going to reopen, it's going to have to be done by direct military means is my guess.
In addition to all those concerns, the polling does not show that Americans are very supportive of this ongoing conflict.
There's Werter's Ipsos survey showing that 59% of Americans disapprove the U.S. strikes on Iran compared to just 37% who approve it, including only about one in five Republicans that actually approves of the war.
Does Iran pose this?
Does this issue pose a threat to the Republican Party, especially as we're heading into the midterms?
Yes.
If you continue to see elevated gas prices, and I think that's a really important economic metric, obviously, stands for cost of living, felt by everyone, advertised basically on every street corner in America, even if you're not filling your tank on any given day.
You see that number, which is now approaching four on average, $4 a gallon across the country.
That's a major downside, as well as the other economic disruptions.
So I think if Trump is successful here, say the Strait of Hormuz is reopened in the next month and there may be a low-level conflict ongoing, but not at this level, and he can declare a victory.
I don't think there's a huge political upside.
I don't think people are voting for Republicans because we've won a war with Iran, but I think we would avoid some of the downsides.
So I think that this is in sheer political terms, this is all downside for Republicans.
There's been no rally around the flag effect, which is very unusual in these sort of conflicts.
There wasn't a wave of public opinion in support of this beforehand.
In fact, there's very little case made for it beforehand, which I think relates to some of the difficulties we've seen or the lack of fully accounting of the potential downsides.
I think if you have a full debate over that, you go to Congress, all the critics of the action opponents the action would say, well, they're going to close the Strait of Hormuz.
What are you going to do about it?
And then you have to really think through and make the public case.
Well, you know what?
We're going to have every minesweeper we have is going to be there.
We're going to get the Europeans on board and get all their minesweepers there, and we'll have X number of minesweepers.
So that will really help.
And then people would say, well, wait a minute, the Europeans seem reluctant.
Then you say, well, we're going to go get them now in advance, you know, and secure their agreement.
So there are a whole host of things that I think could have been sussed out to a much greater extent if this weren't just basically the pejorative way to put it.
It's kind of a seat of the pants decision by the president.
Not that there wasn't a lot of military planning, not that there hasn't been a lot of military successes, but I think there have been significant downsides here that weren't fully accounted for in advance.
And there's potential escalation coming, although last Thursday President Trump said he would not send U.S. troops to the Middle East.
Later that day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the possibility of on-the-ground action.
We've heard multiple reports of troops on their way to the region.
And then there's a Reuters Ipsos poll that says only about six that found that 65% of U.S. adults think that Trump will eventually order troops into a large ground-scale invasion, but only 7% back a large-scale invasion.
34% say they would back it if it was special forces.
But 55% say that they would not support a ground invasion of Iran.
What do you think is the likelihood that we would see the boots on the ground, as it were?
So I think you have to make a distinction between a large-scale ground invasion.
I can't see that scenario.
Maybe it seems extremely unlikely to me.
But I think the likelihood of ground troops being deployed in some form or another, whether it's on Karg Island, whether it's on islands that are in the Strait of Hormuz or would be important to freeing up the Strait of Hormuz or on the shore of the Strait of Hormuz.
I've had some military experts say, we can't do this without ground troops securing the shore.
I think the likelihood of that has increased pretty markedly over the last couple weeks.
Last week, NATO Secretary General said that the Allies would and would not be willing to do certain things in relation to supporting the United States in this effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
What's been your take on how NATO allies and other allies have responded to this request from the president for more support?
Yes, I think their initial reaction, which is no, go pound sand.
It was understandable emotionally, this administration that has insulted Europe almost every opportunity they've had and gone beyond the insult to actually threatening them.
We had a story last couple days on how Denmark and France and the UK were engaged in no-kidding military plans to repulse or at least bloody a potential U.S. invasion of Greenland.
So your allies, they're not going to be very inclined to do what you want when you're in a pinch if that's how you've treated them or how you've scared them.
That said, I think it was unwise for them initially to say, oh, go pound sand.
I think they just sort of said, yes, we're going to help you in any way we can.
As soon as we see a plan that we think is plausible to reopen the Strait, this is an important issue for everyone around the world, especially including us here in Europe.
So, yes, President Trump, we're going to help you.
But the U.S. inevitably is going to take a walk point on any effort to clear the Strait.
So, it wouldn't be as though their minesweepers are the first to go in or anything like that.
So, they've come back a little bit to that position with the statement they released the last couple days, basically say, yeah, yeah, we're here to help, but let's talk about it more.
And I think that would have been a more sensible posture.
But, look, this is there are very few major military operations that have so been on one man.
And that man is Donald Trump.
This was his decision, his decision alone.
Didn't consult Congress or go for authorization, as I mentioned earlier, didn't consult his allies.
I think he was queued up by the success of the operation in Venezuela to think we could do this in Iran too.
And you decapitate the leadership and you have a very quick change of regime or at least adjustment of the regime's attitude, and you go home.
And that hasn't happened.
Let's listen to some of the comments from NATO Secretary General Mark Rotte about the question of the relationship with NATO, the United States' relationship with NATO, and what they are prepared to do when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.
First of all, in my context with allies all over NATO territory, what I'm sensing and hearing is that we all agree, as we always did, that it was crucial for Iran not to get its hands on a nuclear capability, a ballistic missile capability.
And what the U.S. is doing at the moment is degrading that capability of Iran.
And I think that's very important.
This is important for European security, for the Middle East.
It is vital for Israel itself.
A nuclear Iran would potentially have been a direct threat to the future of Israel, but again, to the whole Middle East and to Europe.
Then, when it comes to the Hormuz Strait, everybody agrees this strait cannot stay closed.
It has to open up again as soon as possible.
This is crucial for the world's economy.
It is also crucial because it's unacceptable if a key sea lane is not closed or is so difficult to use that sea lane because of all the threats currently there.
What I'm in my context, which allies are seeing, is that they are intensely discussing amongst each other with the United States and amongst each other the best way forward to tackle this huge security issue.
And let me add to that that I'm confident that allies, as always, will do everything in support of our shared interests, as we always do.
So, we will find a way forward.
Rich Lowery, you write in the National Review that Iran is challenging a bedrock of American geopolitical power when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.
Can you explain what you mean by that and if it's significant enough for the U.S. to kind of go it alone here if the European allies don't step up?
Yeah, so first of all, I think the Secretary General is great.
I think he's sober-minded, responsible, and constructive.
And I think everything he said there was spot-on.
But look, this is a key global commitment of the United States.
Key geopolitical commitment, foundation of our geopolitical power is keeping free navigation and important waterways around the world.
This is something that the British Navy did when they were preeminent for a very long time.
They passed the baton to us around the time of World War II.
And this is why we have a Fifth Fleet, to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
So on top of everything else, the economic and geopolitical effects, this would be a national humiliation if Iran were able to effectively control the straight of her moves going forward.
This regime that has never been hugely powerful, it's never been a world power.
It's had significant regional power over time.
But a regime that has been bombed for weeks now is as weak as it's ever been.
If it can defy the most powerful country in the world and have this chokehold on the global economy, that would be a terrible thing for our country in all sorts of ways.
So there's no alternative than for us to go do this alone.
Hopefully we get help, but we're going to be the leaders of any effort to do this.
And if we can't do it, no one else is doing it for us.
Senate Filibuster and Election Law00:02:50
We'll be taking questions for Rich Lowry of the National Review.
Our phone line for Democrats is 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
Rich, before we get to the calls, I want to ask you about something else in the National Review, an editorial about the SAVE Act.
And the headline here is, the SAVE Act's virtuous goals are not worth the cost.
This is a legislation that's being debated in the Senate that would change the way that federal officials or the federal government is involved in elections.
Can you talk about why you think, why the National Review thinks the SAVE Act is not worth it?
Yeah, so we very much support the underlying goals.
Voter ID is a common sense measure.
There's no evidence anywhere.
It suppresses the vote because everyone has an ID.
If they don't have an ID, they should get an ID to participate in the mainstream of American life.
Also, obviously, people should have proof of citizenship that they're here, that they're citizens and can vote before they register to vote.
All that's clear and obvious, but we support the federal system we have in our elections.
And these ultimately are state matters and local matters that better if they're handled by the states and localities.
But even if you disagree with us and you say all these things should be imposed federally, one, they're not 50 votes for this legislation currently.
Mitch McConnell is very much against federalizing elections.
Lisa Murkowski is against this because of how elections are conducted in Alaska, which is very idiosyncratic compared to other states because of the rural nature of it and the vast spaces involved.
Tom Tillis is not enamored of it.
North Carolina has mail-in voting, which they're talking about saying you can no longer have no excuse mail-in voting.
And there are a lot of states where Republicans have become very adept at mail-in voting.
But so even if you think it should pass, it's not going to pass.
And then to eliminate or have a rifle shot through the filibuster to try to pass it makes no sense.
Because again, you don't have 50 votes.
You certainly don't have 60 votes.
So you'd have to eliminate the filibuster to get close to it.
And then you've left this loaded gun on the table that potentially would be exploited by Democrats if they take over in 2028.
And there are very few things that you can imagine big things in the next nine to 10 months that Republicans want to do that would make eliminating or weakening the filibuster worth it.
I think most big things they couldn't even get 50 votes for, similar to this legislation.
But if Democrats come in, take the House, take the Senate, take the presidency in 2018, and the filibuster is already gone, so there's no difficulty for them there, or there's been a precedent for eliminating the filibuster for important things you want to get through, then it's Katie Bar the door, because I think they very much would want to add D.C. as a state potentially, Puerto Rico as a state, maybe stack the Supreme Court.
Hezbollah Conflict in Beirut00:10:13
These would be big, irreversible things.
So the president really wants this legislation.
A lot of people in the Republican base, very whipped up about it, but I think the party is just going to have to take the L on this one.
All right, let's hear from our callers.
Amelia is in Chicago, Illinois on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Amelia.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Lowry.
We all believe we should love our neighbors.
Right now, thousands are dying, including hundreds of children, and the world economy is set on fire.
What responsibility do you think the president bears for starting this economically and humanely reckless war?
Well, very direct responsibility.
We wouldn't have launched this operation if he didn't want to do it.
And there's some who want to, on the isolationist right, who want our YOA is forced into it by B.B. Netanyahu and there's no choice.
No one tells Donald Trump what to do.
And he's not going to get pushed around by anyone around the world, including by a country of 9 million people in the Middle East.
So he launched this war.
But I very much agree with a caller we heard from right before I came on, I think right around 8 a.m. or so, who said this war has been going on for 50 years.
This is a regime that's been hostile to the United States since its inception, arguably the most anti-American regime in the world, with American blood on its hands up to its elbows.
And this was going to be a growing and intolerable threat.
So I don't agree with we absolutely had to launch this war three weeks ago, but I do think this was a necessary war in the sense that you couldn't allow the Iranians to reconstitute all their missile forces and go bigger and better than they were before at the same time they wanted to develop a nuclear weapon.
That was an intolerable situation because eventually they would have gotten strong enough.
It's been very hard to do this war now.
They've imposed downsides on us.
What would it look like two or three years from now?
Maybe they could more reliably hit Diego Garcia.
And by the way, those missiles they launched just a day or two ago had a much longer range than anyone knew and that the Iranian regime had ever admitted.
So you get a nuclear weapon and you put it on top of a missile that can potentially reach Paris.
That should be an intolerable threat to the rest of the world and obviously to us as well.
So my hats off for Donald Trump for grasping the nettle.
And there was a seal around Iran for decades.
They could hit us with our proxies and we could never hit them directly.
We could fight their proxies.
We can impose sanctions, but we can never hit them directly.
He broke that seal last June with Operation Midnight Hammer and he's gone further here.
So I'm supportive of the effort.
I hope it succeeds, but I'm trying to be clear-eyed about the downsides and where we are right at the moment.
More from that Reuters-Ipsos poll on American support for those U.S. strikes on Iran.
Not surprisingly, 77% of Republicans say they approve of the U.S. strikes on Iran.
28% of independents, just 6% of Democrats support it.
Rich Lowry, you just gave reasoning for the war right now, but many have argued that the president has not been clear on the reasons that we've actually entered this conflict.
And he has given multiple narratives about this.
What do you think it's going to take to get a consistent message from the president on this?
I don't think we're ever going to get an incredibly consistent message from the president.
This is just how he operates.
He likes to preserve his options.
He feels though this is an approach that's worked for him his whole adult life.
And it's hard to argue against that, given that he's now his second term as president of the United States.
But there are downsides in situations like this one, obviously, to this approach.
Now, I do think you can look and see the core of the argument here.
We want to further dismantle their nuclear program.
We want to dismantle their ability to manufacture and launch missiles and drones.
And we want to further reduce their regional power.
And we hope there is some more practical player who emerges from this regime who's willing to negotiate about those things in a way that would be more favorable to us or the regime false.
But that's a little bit of a secondary goal.
The main thing is to eliminate their military might and their regional reach.
But he's just going to, you know, he loves governing through Truth Social, and it is not always very consistent.
And I do think that's a big downside in terms of making the public case for this conflict.
Jerry is in Crane, Texas, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Jerry.
Yes, hey, great.
Rich, yeah, what a pleasure.
I have a question about a disparity.
You're the perfect person to ask.
It's about to say that.
And voter ID.
Okay.
Why is it that roughly 70% of the Democratic Party out there, the electorate, 70% support voter ID, but not one Democrat in Congress?
In fact, they'll get hostile at just the mention of voter ID.
It's amazing.
And then you see all these Democrats on the House of the Senate.
Have they been debating it?
And all these Democrats lying about just yeah, well, they just convinced themselves that asking people to show any form of ID constitutes Jim Crow 2.0 or Jim Eagle, as somewhat mystifyingly, Joe Biden said during an election debate during his time in office.
But this has become a quasi-religious commitment and it's completely absurd.
As you point out, the polling shows almost universal support for voter ID.
We have a lot of states in the Union already have it.
And again, there's no evidence whatsoever that it suppresses the vote.
So this is a near-theological commitment of theirs that, in my view, makes zero sense.
Patrick is in Fruitland Park, Florida on our line for independence.
Good morning, Patrick.
Well, thanks for taking my call.
I think there's a lot of things left out in this discussion.
Ariel Sharon was labeled the butcher of Beirut by his own country's judicial system, said he should never hold public office.
He spent 20 years chanting greater Israel by force.
You elected P.M. Perez, one of the ex, I think it was Perez, who said there should be a two-state solution.
He was publicly assassinated by an Israeli terrorist.
Rich Lowry, you know, that if C-SPAM would read the After Actions report of the bombing in Beirut, the U.S. Navy was shelling certain groups over there.
The Marines landed.
The Marines there told, we're taking increasing sniper fire.
We're going to be attacked.
They were told, no, stay, stay.
So we shot at people and they shot back.
You never mentioned that.
There were two takeovers.
Patrick, can you help us connect this to the conflict happening with Iran now?
I understand that there's a lot of history leading up to it, but what was your question for Rich Lowry?
This constant, oh, Israel, poor Israel, they never do anything wrong.
We got to support them.
How big is their country now through illegal settlements?
Wasn't Hamas or Hezbollah started?
You're not taking any more of our land through illegal settlements.
There's constant one.
Which of these points are you asking Rich Lowry to respond to?
C-SPAM.
Yeah, I think I get the drift of the caller's case, which is Israel is this vicious expansionist power and kind of gets what it deserves.
And it's understandable that it has these terrorist forces ringing it and trying to destroy it.
And I just don't agree with that at all.
If Hamas and Hezbollah stood down tomorrow, really, would Israel be attacking southern Lebanon and attempting engage in repeated incursions of southern Lebanon over time, over decades?
No, of course not.
If everyone else accepted Israel's existence, which we accept most countries' existence all around the world, you'd have normality in the Middle East.
And Israel is a Western-oriented country.
It has its flaws.
You don't need to like Ariel Sharon or B.B. Netanyahu.
You know, 40% of Israelis hate B.B. Netanyahu with a burning passion.
So all that's totally fine.
But this is a country that has a right to exist, shouldn't be wiped from the map.
And as soon as you have the countries or players around it accepting that, I think you unlock a region that is at peace and can go about developing itself and maybe giving its citizens rights of the sort they have in Israel.
That would be a wonderful thing.
There is fighting in Lebanon happening now.
There's a story in the New York Times from yesterday.
Israel strikes across Lebanon amid fierce groundfighting in the south.
The Israeli military said it was stepping up attacks aimed at infrastructure in Beirut belonging to Hezbollah.
This is the violence came as people around Lebanon attempted to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
At the same time, heavy rain and thunder swept through the capital, Beirut, where many displaced people are camping outside and have nowhere else to go as the war approaches its fourth week.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it was targeting infrastructure in Beirut belonging to Hezbollah with an increasing intensity, just as another sort of front in this ongoing conflict.
Texas SAVE Act Debate00:13:12
Let's hear from George in Elgin, Texas, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, George.
Good morning, C-SPAN.
Good morning, Mr. Lowry.
And thank you for taking my call.
This is kind of in response to the from Texas on the SAVE Act.
You said there's states in the Union that currently have voter ID, and Texas is one of those states.
We've had voter ID for years.
You go in there with your voter registration card, they set it aside, and they ask for your ID immediately.
And you don't vote without that ID.
So I don't know what you're complaining about.
But there's another thing about that.
My wife and I have been together 50 years.
And we've had driver's license for longer than that.
And in Texas, your driver's license number doesn't change throughout your life.
It remains the same.
So we went together to renew our driver's license.
And she's Hispanic.
She's brown.
She has black hair and a black eye.
And I'm white.
And we had two lines that day at the driver's license office.
I had no problem.
I got my driver license renewed.
When she went up there today and said, ma'am, you need to show us a birth certificate or a passport.
And so she reached in her purse and pulled out her passport and handed it across the counter.
And the lady looked at her and said, ma'am, this is a passport.
And she goes, that's right.
Because she was stunned that somebody brown could immediately jump through that hoop.
So the SAVE Act is a useless piece of legislation.
It's already been done here in Texas.
Texas has been under control of Republicans for over 25 years.
And all it is is Jim Crow.
You remember Barack Obama.
He had to show his birth certificate.
The President of the United States had to show his birth certificate.
So George, I want to give Rich Lowry a chance to respond because some of these points that you're raising are ones that have been raised by many Democrats who are concerned that issuing the types of policies under the SAVE Act would lead to situations like the one Greg was describing.
Yeah, I have no idea what the person in the voter registrar's office or the DMV was thinking in that interaction with the gentleman's wife.
I take his point.
He's correct.
There are a lot of states that have voter ID.
That's what I said, and it's not a problem, as he also pointed out, is something I agree with.
Now, there are potential practical difficulties when it comes to how Republicans want people around the country to produce evidence that they are U.S. citizens.
So that's another reason I think it's just better for states to handle this.
And at National Review, we want people to have to prove that they're citizens.
It's common sense, have to produce an ID, but we're not sure that this federal legislation is the best way.
Imposing a national standard for all this is the best solution.
Homer is in Florence, Massachusetts on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Homer.
Good morning, Kimberly.
I just wanted to say thanks for your poll earlier of 3,651 people in a country of 355 million.
I don't think it means much.
Homer, what do you think is an appropriate sample size for public opinion surveys to where you would feel confident in their outcome?
There would be no poll that could possibly give me an example of 355 million diverse people in this country.
But I wanted to say to Rich Lowry, was it a war when Barack Obama bombed for eight months in Libya?
Did he get approval from the Congress?
And also when they bombed Syria?
Or what about when Biden bombed Syria, Libya, and Lebanon?
I mean, I'm just curious, because we didn't call it a war then.
Those were just, I don't know what.
I think we've got the idea.
Yeah, no, I take that point.
Look, those were wars.
I think it's absurd this tradition we now have in this country.
I'm not calling significant military operations acts of war.
They clearly are.
This is a war now.
And I don't think as a technical legal matter, President Trump had to go to Congress on this.
I think Iran did provide aid to the September 11th hijackers in al-Qaeda.
So the so-called AUMF does apply here, but that's quite dusty.
That's quite long ago, so I think it's a prudential matter.
That's an operation for use of military force.
Correct.
But I think as a prudential matter, in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution, it would have been better if he went to Congress.
But he also has, as Caller points out, a lot of precedent for other military actions, other acts of war, that presidents undertook on their own.
So it's not as though anyone's going to take him to court and stop this war.
The Justice Department or the Office of Legal Counsel will have lots of reasons to say he had the authority to do this on his own.
I just think it would have been better in all sorts of ways if he'd gone to Congress beforehand.
Kate is in Missouri on our line for independence.
Good morning, Kate.
Good morning.
What's your question for Rich Lowry?
My question is, because there are so many parts of the SAVE Act, they're already covered in the various states.
Could there be anything in the SAVE Act that gives the president, but could it be used as a stepping stone for federalization?
Kate, your line is cutting in and out.
Could you ask that question again, please?
Sure.
Is there anything in a SAVE Act that the President could use as a stepping stone toward further federalization?
Okay, you're still cutting in and out, but I believe what you were asking is there's something in the Save Act.
Okay.
Yeah, for us, it's another potential downside.
It's not as though Democrats haven't tried to federalize elections on their own.
There's a big effort in the Biden administration as well.
We just don't think Republicans should provide more precedent for doing that.
So again, as a prudential matter, we'd prefer that this handled by states.
Mark is in East Northport, New York, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Mark.
Good morning.
As a veteran, my question to you is, do you think people underestimate how often leadership has to act on information the public isn't aware of?
And how do you explain those decisions to the people who only see it after the fact?
So, sorry, it was a little fuzzy.
How often the president has to act on threats that people aren't aware of.
Yes, how often leaders have to make decisions based on non-public information and how they explain those decisions.
Yeah, I think it happens fairly often in the scheme of things.
It's usually smaller scale than what we're seeing here in the war against Iran.
So I don't think that really applies here.
I think everything you need to know, you could have made the case publicly beforehand.
But one thing I'm mystified talking about things that aren't public is why if the United States and Israel are so bent on toppling this regime, something that I support and hope happens, why there wasn't more effort to have some sort of covert action to arm an opposition in Iran?
Because it's very hard to do regime change from the air.
When you have a ground force that's armed working in conjunction with air cover, which could be very close and very coordinated given some of the extraordinary technical operations we've seen here, then it's possible to unlock more possibilities.
But for some reason, that didn't happen.
So maybe it has happened.
We don't know about it, and we're going to learn about it soon, but it doesn't seem to have happened.
And I'm not sure why that was the case.
Crystal's in Wilkesbar, Pennsylvania, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Crystal.
Yes, good morning.
If you just let me get two points across.
First of all, I think that if Israel and the United States and many other countries have nuclear weapons, I think every country should have them, and maybe they'll stop fighting each other.
That's number one.
Number two, as a black woman in America, Iran has never called me the N-word, has never said we eat cats and dogs.
I have no problem with them whatsoever.
I stand with Iran.
Thank you and have a good day.
Okay, that's quite the strong take, I would say.
There are a lot of countries around the world that have nuclear weapons, some that shouldn't.
North Korea at the top of that list, but we don't have to worry that, say, France is going to randomly nuke someone or hold the world hostage.
It's not going to happen.
It's a liberal Western country.
That's not true of Iran.
And it's just intolerable to have this apocalyptic religious extremist theocracy with the power to threaten the entire region and to stay the region's hands or the hands of the United States of America if we're undertaking even more threatening actions around the region.
So this is why it's been a matter of bipartisan consensus.
Every recent president, Republican or Democrat, has said Iran can't have a nuclear weapon.
Now you have different means of attempting to achieve that or maybe not quite achieve it or let Iran sit on the cusp of a nuclear weapon.
That's what Barack Obama's approach was.
But everyone said they can't do this.
And the idea that because President Trump has said controversial things, he's comparable to the Iranians, or the Iranians are even better, is obviously preposterous and shameful.
President Trump is the leader of our country.
He's been duly elected.
We have a constitutional system.
We have a free country, et cetera.
And Iran is none of those things.
It has been a blight on the region since its inception nearly 50 years ago.
And it would be great if it went away and there are a different regime there, a different government there that actually honored the rights of its citizens, that didn't massacre its citizens in the streets if they had the temerity to engage in protest marches.
So I'm not sure that's going to happen as a result of this military operation, but it'd be a very good thing if it did.
Ed is in West Virginia on our line for independence.
Good morning, Ed.
Yes.
I'm 91 years old.
I'm blind.
I remember when all this started, 1979.
I think I voted for Jimmy Carter because I've been an independent ever since 1956 when I cast my first vote.
There's so many questions asked by these people that call in and you just don't seem to ever ask them people like a person calls in and says, I'm a Republican.
I've been a Republican all my life.
How do you know they've been a Republican all their life?
This war started in 1979.
And if we'd have had eight other presidents that would have had the guts to stand up to Iran, I'm not a Trump fan.
I really ain't.
But I was so glad that he took this action.
And he took it because these people, if you want to wait another 20 years and find out about it, look out your windows.
You'll be able to see it.
Thank you very much for my time and consideration.
Any thoughts you'd like to have?
I appreciate that call.
Yeah, appreciate that call very much.
I agree.
There's been a state of war since 1979.
Pretty much any time over the last 50 years, especially the beginning there, someone told you in 1979, you know how this ends?
You know how this regime ends?
It ends in a war with the great Satan and the little Satan.
You wouldn't have been surprised.
Or if anyone had told you, oh, you know what, we have a very nationalistic president of the United States who's obsessed with strength and he's bombed Iran, that wouldn't have been a surprise.
So I think there's an element of this conflict that was inevitable.
Doesn't mean it had to happen three weeks ago.
Doesn't mean that everything's been perfect here.
Obviously, it hasn't.
But eventually, there was going to be this kind of showdown with this regime that actually sought it.
You know, it's part of its reason and purpose to have a conflict with what it considers the great Satan.
Well, thank you so much for your time.
Rich Lowery, editor and chief of the National Review.
Thanks as always for joining us on Washington Journal.
Thanks for having me.
I enjoyed it.
Cal Ripken Jr. Book Club00:01:05
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Today, with our guest Hall of Fame baseball player and best-selling author, Cal Ripken Jr., who has authored and co-authored more than a dozen books, including The Only Way I Know, Get in the Game, and a series of children's books.
He joins our host, civic leader, best-selling author, and owner of the Baltimore Orioles, David Rubinstein.
I thought writing kids' books were a good way to Broach certain subjects that might have been tough when you're kids or whatever else in the backdrop of a travel team, travel baseball team, because you know we all worry about things as kids, and it was a way to communicate a good message through books.
So I just enjoyed the process.
Watch America's Book Club with Cal Ripken Jr. today at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
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