Tom Nichols on Potential U.S. Attack on Iran: ‘You Can’t Pull This Off When You Don’t Have a Functioning Secretary of Defense and a Functioning Intelligence Community’

MENENDEZ: “Let’s add to that risk, Tom, potential economic consequences. This is separate reporting that says Iran retains the naval assets and other capabilities it would need to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which is such an important trade route. A quarter of the world’s oil and 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas passes through it. So, mining the choke point would cause gas prices to soar. Just — I think there are folks who watch and say, what does this all mean for me, right? What does this decision, what does — what does the — what are the implications of this decision that the president says he’s taking two weeks to decide upon?”

Nichols: “I think Americans have always had a hard time drawing a Link between the stability of the international environment and their day-to-day standard of living. You know, the way I sometimes try to get it across to people is to say, imagine all of the supply chain problems you lived through during the pandemic and then living through them when enemies around the world inflict those on you just because they can. Not because there’s a pandemic, just as a matter of policy. But it could — I think, you know, the economic question, it’s a really important question, but I think we shouldn’t get too far away from something we always told people when I taught at a war college, that, if you’re going to attack, the enemy gets a vote. And I want to go back to those threats to, you know, American forces, American service people. That’s going to put — if you want to know how it’s going to affect the average American, there are people, there are Americans that could get killed in this. That doesn’t mean it’s not, you know, if you’re really determined to take out the Iranian nuclear capability, you know, forever or for a long time, that’s a really — I think General Twitty has made that point really well. It’s a really complicated plan. But the Iranians are not potted plants. They’re not just going to sit there and say, wow, that was a really good operation, I guess it’s over. And I think nobody’s really thinking this through in the White House. The president is saying, he’s threatening the Supreme Leader, he’s calling for unconditional surrender. There’s all this stuff coming out of the White House. And I just want to underscore this problem of, you can’t pull this off when you don’t have a functioning Secretary of Defense and a functioning intelligence community. And, you know, these are really important institutions. And, you know, even on the — under the best circumstances, with a fully functional White House, with people who know what they’re doing, this would be an incredibly fraught operation. But when you have, you know, this group that, you know, again, seems to be in such disarray, this — that makes this a tremendously dangerous thing to do.”