STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Earlier this week, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy sat in a closed-door briefing with administration officials, and he emerged contending that U.S. war plans are, quote, "incoherent and incomplete." So we've called him up. Senator, welcome back.
CHRIS MURPHY: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What's incoherent?
MURPHY: Well, Donald Trump has said repeatedly as your - as you noted, that one of our war aims is to end their nuclear program. He has also said repeatedly that he wants unconditional surrender and wants to pick the next leader of Iran. In that briefing, our military leadership made it clear that they are not targeting nuclear sites and that they are not seeking regime change. And so at the end of this conflict, if we are going to end up with hard-line Iranian leadership that is more anti-American, more provocative to our interests than the original ayatollah was, and we have not destroyed their nuclear program and we also have seen a historic disruption in oil flows, that sounds like a pretty bad deal for the globe, for the region and for the American taxpayer.
INSKEEP: OK. A lot to follow up on there. And here's one thing. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a public statement - not in a closed-door briefing - a couple of days ago, in which he said the war goals were eliminating Iran's missile capacity and eliminating their navy. And he didn't mention the nuclear program. Are you telling me that Rubio's public statement is closer to what you hear from the people who are actually running the day-to-day conduct of the war?
MURPHY: You know, obviously, you're just hearing conflicting statements from the president, from his leadership, from the military. It's hard to know what's true. Obviously, the president is ultimately in charge. Rubio also has said at times that the United States actually didn't want this war to begin with and that the only reason that we attacked was simply to defend our interests in the region from blowback from a planned Israeli strike. So that's why I used the word incoherent. It seems like every day they are coming up with a new reason why we started this war and different goals for the conflict.
INSKEEP: You just also issued a warning there, the idea being that if the United States fails to change the regime, that you end up with a country that is more anti-American even than it was before and still has some kind of remnant of a nuclear program, and that might put you on the same page with John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser. He was on the program yesterday and he said it would be a mistake for the United States to stop short of regime change. Let's listen to a little bit of that.
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JOHN BOLTON: The whole point of this exercise, if it means anything, is not to mow the lawn and reduce the threat. Israel has done that repeatedly over the years in many ways - cyberattacks, assassination inside Iran.
INSKEEP: Sure.
BOLTON: The point here is get rid of what is the real ultimate threat, which is the regime itself.
INSKEEP: So this is a hard question for you, Senator Murphy. You clearly think this war was a bad idea, but the United States started it, and you're worried about a regime that would be even more dangerous in the aftermath. Does the United States then have to follow through and finish this?
MURPHY: Absolutely not. The only thing that would be worse than this current bungled, incoherent war is a war that puts millions of American troops on the ground to try to pursue regime change, which would probably end up with the same result as Iraq - building an insurgency inside that country that would last for decades and put multiple interests in the region at risk. No, we need to end this war right now. This is a bit like breaking an egg in front of you and asking how you're going to put it back together. This is a mess. It's going to remain a mess for a long time, but it's only going to get worse for the region and for our security interests if we continue it. So the only option now is to end it.
INSKEEP: Do you assume that there is no way to change the regime without putting a big army in there?
MURPHY: Yes. And here's what's unforgivable, is that Trump knew that. All of our intelligence estimates told the administration that it was very unlikely that an air campaign was going to lead to regime change, and every president has always known that Iran would shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they took a military action like this, and we've always known that we have really no way to reopen it. So all of this was foreseeable, and yet Trump did it anyway, and has put the American people in a really tough position because they have to bear the cost of it.
INSKEEP: Here's another hard question. You say you want the war to end. The president seems to think that that's still within his power. He said to Axios yesterday - this is a quote - "anytime I want it to end, it will end." Effectively saying, I can quit anytime I want. Do you believe that he can?
MURPHY: Well, I don't believe the president had the power to start the war. So I just contest the entire idea that the president has unlimited power in war-making. Obviously, at some point, he's going to run out of money, and he's going to have to come back to Congress. I think it's unforgivable that we haven't had a debate on a declaration of war. That's Republicans' fault - they run the Senate. But I don't think that anybody who opposes this war should vote for a dime of additional money. That may be the quickest way that we can bring this war to an end is to deny them the money for it.
INSKEEP: I guess what I want to know is, do you think that if the United States just stops shooting, stops bombing, that the war would go away? Because the Iranians have a vote here. The Israelis have a vote here.
MURPHY: Oh, I think that's very true. And, of course, the global oil disruption is going to last for months. But the quickest way to lower prices, which is what matters to most Americans who don't see any other national security interest to pursue this war, is for the United States to get out of it as quickly as possible.
INSKEEP: I'm keeping you here an extra minute, Senator. I hope that's OK because there is another thing that I want to follow up on and hear your thoughts about. A Pentagon investigation has found that the United States did, in fact, strike a girls' school with a tomahawk missile, killing far more than 100 people, despite the president's statements that maybe somebody else fired this U.S.-made missile. But that's what the Pentagon investigation has found, the preliminary findings, according to NPR's reporting and other people's reporting. What is the cost to the United States when it kills so many civilians?
MURPHY: Well, first of all, let's just not gloss over the fact that the president knew that we struck this site - it was obvious from the first minute - and has been lying about it. In fact, at some point, said that maybe it was Iran that somehow got their hands on a tomahawk missile and fired it on their own school. It's just - it's not a small thing that the president lies to us on a regular basis. But this is why air campaigns don't work because you end up killing a lot of civilians, you harden the population, they end up electing or choosing hard-line leadership and ultimately, that leadership is worse for the people of that country in the long run and for U.S. national security interests. It's a lesson we learned - should have learned - in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we're refusing to learn it again.
INSKEEP: Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Pleasure talking with you, sir. Thank you so much.
MURPHY: Thank you.
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