“Why Are We Going to War?”: Former U.S. Middle East Officials Say Trump Has “No Clear Plan” on Iran

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran have entered a sixth day as the war spreads beyond the Middle East. In Iran, the U.S.-Israeli attacks have reportedly killed more than 1,230 people. According to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, the U.S. and Israel have struck at least 174 cities in Iran since Saturday. Iranian officials have accused the U.S. and Israel of intentionally striking civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and sports stadiums.

Iran is continuing to retaliate across the Gulf. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claims it’s inflicted significant damage on 20 U.S. military targets in Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. Iran has been accused of firing drones and missiles at Azerbaijan and Turkey, but Iran denies both claims. On Wednesday, NATO air defenses shot down a ballistic missile headed into Turkish airspace. Earlier today, Iran’s IRGC took credit for attacking a U.S. oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.

This comes a day after a U.S. submarine torpedoed an Iranian naval vessel off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing at least 87 people. The ship had been returning from India, where it took part in a major international naval exercise called Milan 2026. The U.S. had been invited to take part in the same exercise but pulled out. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the U.S. Navy of committing an atrocity at sea. He said on social media, quote, “Mark my words: The U.S. will come to bitterly regret [the] precedent it has set,” unquote.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Israel’s attacks on Lebanon has reached 77. More than 300,000 people have evacuated southern Lebanon.

Earlier today, the Pentagon revealed the final two names of the six U.S. soldiers killed in an Iranian attack in Kuwait. On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticized how the news media has reported on U.S. troop deaths.

DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate. But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad. But try, for once, to report the reality.

AMY GOODMAN: CNN’s Kaitlan Collins later questioned White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about Hegseth’s remarks.

KAITLAN COLLINS: The president is going to attend the dignified transfer for these families. Given what Secretary Hegseth said this morning, is it the position of this administration that the press should not prominently cover the deaths of U.S. service members?

PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: No, it’s the position of this administration that the press in this room and the press across the country should accurately report on the success of Operation Epic Fury and the damage it is doing to the rogue Iranian regime that has threatened the lives of every single American in this room.

KAITLAN COLLINS: Hegseth was complaining that it was front-page news about these six service members who were killed.

PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: That’s not what the secretary said, Kaitlan, and that’s not what the secretary meant, and you know it.

KAITLAN COLLINS: I can produce quotes.

PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: You know you are being disingenuous. There is not — we’ve never had a secretary of defense who cares more — 

KAITLAN COLLINS: He said, “When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad.”

PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: Yeah, the press does —

KAITLAN COLLINS: As you know, we cover the deaths of U.S. service members under every president.

PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: The press does only want to make the president look bad. That’s a — that’s a fact, especially you. No, listen to me, especially you and especially CNN. And the secretary of defense cares deeply about our war fighters and our men and women in uniform.

AMY GOODMAN: This all comes as the Republican-led Senate rejected a resolution aimed to force President Trump to end the war in Iran, which was launched without congressional approval. Democratic Senator John Fetterman joined Republicans to oppose the war powers resolution. Republican Senator Rand Paul was the sole Republican to vote to curtail Trump’s war powers. The House is scheduled to vote on a similar resolution today.

We’re joined now by two former U.S. government officials with long histories working on Mideast policy. Jasmine El-Gamal is the founder and CEO of Averos Strategies, foreign policy analyst and former Middle East adviser at the Pentagon during the Obama administration. She’s joining us from London. Also with us, Hala Rharrit. She’s an 18-year career diplomat who resigned from the State Department over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. She was the first State Department diplomat to publicly resign. She had served as Arabic-language spokesperson for the State Department. Rharrit is now an IMEU Policy Project nonresident fellow, joining us from Muscat, Oman, after evacuating from Dubai.

Let’s begin with you there, Hala Rharrit. Explain what happened, why you have evacuated your family to Oman. And respond to what the U.S. has been doing over the last six days. We have entered the six-day mark for the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, and then Iran retaliating throughout the Gulf.

HALA RHARRIT: Amy, it’s such a pleasure to be back with you. I wish it was under better circumstances.

But, yes, like the rest of the world, I woke up on Saturday morning to the horrific news that the United States and Israel had attacked Iran. And I had the most sinking feeling, because this is exactly what American diplomats have been trying to avoid for two decades. And before my resignation, it is exactly what I was warning against and what I was trying to alleviate and was trying to stop. And it was just a horrific feeling, knowing that the day had come and that this would absolutely not end well.

When it comes to my family, I live in Dubai, as you mentioned, and I knew that the retaliation would come quickly. And so, as a mother, I went into action mode as to what we needed to do to keep our family safe. Now, it did not take very long for the strikes to begin, and we could hear them very loudly in Dubai, unfortunately. My kids were very frightened. We could hear the fighter jets, and we could also hear the interceptions. Now, luckily for the civilian population in Dubai, there’s a robust missile defense system provided by the United States, unlike — and I have to stress — the civilian population in Gaza, that did not have the luxury of having a missile defense system or any type of defense system. So we were relatively safe. But for the sake of my children, we slept — we did not sleep. We had a sleepless night on Saturday, because the noises were scaring them, and also we were getting these automatic updates. Whether your phone is on silent, the government was pushing out these very scary-sounding eeeh, that was really, really frightening to my kids. We were all in one — in my bedroom.

And after that, we knew, my husband and I understood, and I understood deeply as an American diplomat, that this situation would only escalate. So we decided on Sunday morning; as soon as we woke up, we hit the road to Oman. And I have been here since. Now we’re in a bit of limbo, along with a lot of other American citizens, because the airspace is heavily restricted, and it’s very hard to get air flights out. So, for the time being, we’re here and trying to figure out our next steps.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there were indirect U.S.-Iran talks going on in Geneva that were facilitated by Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi, key mediator in the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks. This was the foreign minister speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation this weekend.

BADR ALBUSAIDI: The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never, ever have a nuclear material that will create a bomb. This is, I think, a big achievement. This is something that is not in the old deal that was negotiated during President Obama’s time. This is something completely new. It really makes the enrichment argument less relevant, because now we are talking about zero stockpiling. And that is very, very important, because if you cannot stockpile material that is enriched, then there is no way you can actually create a bomb, whether you enrich or don’t enrich. And I think this is really something that has been missed a lot by the media, and I want to clarify that from the standpoint of a mediator.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s really interesting, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, the key mediator in the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks. He flew from Geneva to Washington, D.C., apparently, word has it, to be able to directly convey to the president through the media to make sure that he was not only getting — the president was not only getting the Witkoff-Jared Kushner version of the talks, but also to say, “You have a better deal than President Obama got back in 2015.” I wanted to bring Jasmine El-Gamal into this conversation, former Middle East adviser to the Pentagon during Obama’s administration. Your response to what has taken place?

JASMINE EL-GAMAL: Well, first of all, thank you so much, Amy, for having me on. I’m a big fan of the show, and it’s really good to see Hala, as well.

I think, you know, there are really two big questions that any U.S. administration should have the answer to before it goes to war. One is: Why are we going to war? Is this necessary? Have all other avenues been exhausted? That’s one set of questions. And, of course, the other one is: What are our objectives? Are they achievable? And what is our exit strategy? That’s the second bucket of questions. And neither of those two buckets of questions have been adequately answered by the U.S. administration, by any official, whether it’s Pete Hegseth at the Defense Department, Secretary Rubio or the president himself.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about the Trump administration’s shifting rationales for why the U.S. attacked Iran amidst ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. So, this is Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking Monday.

SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: 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 act.

AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday, Rubio backtracked and said the decision to strike came from President Trump, not Israel. On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary [Karoline] Leavitt said Trump had a, quote, “good feeling” Iran would attack.

PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: I think the president, prior to that phone call, had a good feeling that the Iranian regime was going to strike United States assets and our personnel in the region.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Jasmine El-Gamal, as a former Pentagon official, your characterization of these shifting reasons that the U.S. has attacked Iran?

JASMINE EL-GAMAL: I mean, it obviously shows you that there was no clear plan and no well-thought-out strategy before the U.S. entered into this war. Now, I don’t want to remove all agency from President Trump. After all, he is the one who gave the order at the end. But we do know, from extensive reporting from Hala and I — I’m sure she can agree — from our time in government, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been for decades trying to drag the U.S. into war with Iran. Senator Van Hollen yesterday said he just hadn’t found a president stupid enough to be dragged into that war.

So, he was under — we know that President Trump was under heavy pressure from Prime Minister Netanyahu to strike Iran while it was down, while it was weak. The way that the Israeli prime minister — and certainly this is true — describe Iran today is probably at its weakest point from a security and defense perspective, from the perspective of its proxies, and from an economic and internal domestic perspective, as well. So, the idea here for those who are pushing for war with Iran was that it was now or never, it was really the right time to do so.

Now, Amy, that doesn’t mean that there was an imminent threat from Iran to the United States, which is what the U.S. needs to have a proper legal basis for this war. Intelligence assessments do not agree with the president’s characterization that Iran was about to strike first. And I can tell you, having worked at the Pentagon, that it is ludicrous to expect the American people to believe that Iran would have attacked the U.S. preemptively in the middle of negotiations, especially when, as you said, according to the Omani foreign minister who was mediating, that Iran was actually trying to make some kind of progress in these talks.

And I think, lastly, it’s just important to separate two things here, which can be true at the same time. One is that this Iranian regime was a brutal, oppressive regime, and, second, that it is not a legal justification to go to war to have the president talk about his “feeling” that Iran was going to strike. And we have seen the administration, every day since then, retroactively try to provide a series of justifications and objectives for this war. And the fact that they’re doing so now, after the fact, tells you a lot about how little they were really thinking this through before they actually went to war.

AMY GOODMAN: Hala Rharrit, you’re an 18-year career diplomat. You resigned over the U.S.'s Gaza policy under President Biden, the first diplomat to publicly resign over the U.S. support for the Israeli assault on Gaza. If you can talk about the through-line from there to here — while you say that you were shocked Saturday morning, you weren't actually surprised — and what this means in terms of a wider conflict, the massive Israeli assault right now on Lebanon, with tens of thousands of Lebanese fleeing, Syrian refugees who have lived in Lebanon now crossing back over the border into Syria, terrified about what’s happening in Lebanon? Take it from there.

HALA RHARRIT: Absolutely. No, I was horrified by what was happening, but I was not at all surprised. This is what I was warning against. This is what multiple diplomats were warning against and what we were working and trying to avoid.

Now, if you rewind back to 2023 and 2024, you’ll remember that there was a lot of activity, even then, with the Iranians. Israel attacked Iran and killed Iranian commanders in Syria. Three service members in Jordan were killed, as well, by an Iranian-backed group. All of this was a lead-up that was dragging the United States into a direct conflict with Iran. And as an American diplomat, my role was to protect and defend the United States of America. And so, our warnings were “pull back, pull back.” But Netanyahu obviously had other plans.

Now, we insisted — we insisted that U.S. law would actually be followed, meaning you cannot continue to surge unconditional weapons to the state of Israel. We knew, and we were documenting, and I even reported this to Congress after my resignation, that these weapons were not being stockpiled by Israel. The weapons that we were sending to Israel were not only being used for the genocide in Gaza, but that they were going to be used for a regional conflict with Iran, which would have the proportions to bring down, really, the entire region. I don’t think we can underestimate what is actually happening now.

So, for Netanyahu, there is not two policies. It is not Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon. It is one in the same.

AMY GOODMAN: I — 

HALA RHARRIT: For the state of Israel — sorry, go on.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation saying it’s been inundated with over 200 calls from members of the U.S. military regarding religious comments made by U.S. commanders about the war in Iran. One combat unit commander reportedly said the war is, quote, “part of God’s divine plan,” and that, quote, “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” unquote. Last month, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, or, as Trump calls him, the war secretary, invited the controversial Christian nationalist Pastor Doug Wilson to lead the Pentagon’s prayer service. Wilson has opposed Muslims holding public office, does not believe women should be allowed to vote. Jasmine El-Gamal, you’re a former Pentagon official. Your response to how this is being framed and the danger of this, what’s seen as a Christian crusade by some?

JASMINE EL-GAMAL: Look, I mean, obviously, it’s horrifying to hear those remarks, and there certainly has been in this second Trump administration that surge of Christian nationalism, of Christian Zionism, into U.S. policymaking when it comes to the Middle East. And it is absolutely horrifying, because it means that we are sending American soldiers, U.S., using American taxpayer money, to a region that has been ravaged over the years by successive ill-thought-out U.S. interventions. The human cost of America’s wars in the Middle East has been devastating. In just the last five days, as you mentioned earlier, almost 1,200 people killed and injured, tens of thousands displaced. The human cost is not something to be taken lightly here. And the recklessness and the callousness of these decisions that are being made by a handful of men, essentially, that are — that are upending the region, you know, and the global economy, as well, especially if it continues much, much further, is extremely irresponsible —

AMY GOODMAN: Jasmine El-Gamal, we’re going to have to — 

JASMINE EL-GAMAL: — and extremely dangerous.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, former Middle East adviser at the Pentagon under President Obama. Hala Rharrit is an 18-year career diplomat who resigned from the State Department over Gaza under Biden, has now moved their family to Oman because of the escalating war.