On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that “it’s pretty easy to make the point that we aren’t a lot better off than we were before the war.” And, ultimately, if the Trump administration “can get the 440 kilograms of enriched uranium removed, they should trade sanction relief for that. You have to trade something. The military defeat has not been enough, they will have to trade something to get that enriched uranium out of Iran.”
Paul said, “I guess you’d have to ask the question, are we better off because of the war or worse off? You could argue that defeating them militarily gives us a better position to negotiate a peace, but you’re also negotiating with people who, you’ve killed the ayatollah, his son is now in charge, you blew off the leg of the son, disfigured him, and have been insulting him in the media since, so he may not be inclined to negotiate. The other thing that is likely worse since the war started is that the Strait of Hormuz is now militarized and had not been previously. So, if you look at this thing and say, what’s better, what’s worse, it’s pretty easy to make the point that we aren’t a lot better off than we were before the war.”
He added that, when it comes to the military operation, “if it’s not working well, I don’t know that expanding it will make it better. I think that the president needs room to negotiate a peace. I’m for trying to get a negotiated settlement. I’ve told the president as much. And I think part of the president would like to see peace happen, but I don’t think that the reports that the hardliners are gone and now we have these soft-hearted moderates in place, it just isn’t true. You have to imagine, if they killed your father and now you’re the ayatollah and they blew your leg off and they disfigured you and they make fun of you in the media and they threaten still to kill you, whether or not that makes you a person inclined to want to negotiate. So, there [are] a lot of things at odds here. And I think we could get to a negotiated settlement. And the one thing I do respect from the Trump administration is, they have said they are willing to trade sanctions for removal of the enriched uranium, that’s not something that you have to wait to prove. If they can get the 440 kilograms of enriched uranium removed, they should trade sanction relief for that. You have to trade something. The military defeat has not been enough, they will have to trade something to get that enriched uranium out of Iran.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett