A day after President Trump called for Rhode Island U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to be impeached for criticizing the Iran war, Reed doubled down on his statements.
Reed says President Trump’s deal intended to end the war in Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz indicates a flawed approach.
“They are well-positioned to close the straits again at any time if they wish to do so,” Reed said Monday in an interview with Ocean State Media. “And prior to the attack by the United States and Israel, the straits were open toll-free, so we’re just going back to where President Trump started from.”
“But it’s cost us hundreds of billions of dollars,” Reed added, “it has cost our allies in the region a great deal of money, and I think, ironically, the Iranian government that is emerging is more committed, more fanatical, than the ones that were decapitated by the first strikes.”
The initial criticism of Trump’s Iran deal from Reed, a former Army Ranger and ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, came in an interview with Fox News on Sunday.
Trump responded to Reed after the senator described the peace deal with Iran as offering less than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 deal to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The president used a social media post to call for the impeachment of the Rhode Island senator, saying in part: “Senator Jack Reed, a Dumocrat from R.I., lied when stating the the Deal we just made is not as good as the Obama disaster known as the JCPOA. Reed is either an outright fraud, or incompetent.”
Reed said he’s not surprised to be targeted by the president after offering criticism.
“The president is always, in my view, reluctant to accept the facts and the truth, and he lashes out, and I’m not the first or the only one,” he said. “So it’s not surprising you got that kind of incoherent screed about ‘he doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ et cetera,” Reed added. “I’ve spent a great deal of time looking at these issues and experiencing the implications and the effects of some of these arrangements.”
Regarding the peace deal, Reed said, “First of all, there are no details. This is essentially an agreement to make an agreement. The rest is just verbalizing by the president. It’s going to be very difficult to get back to the limits that the Obama deal had. For one thing, the Iranians have increased substantially the amount of uranium they have. They’ve enriched it to almost bomb-grade uranium.”
Reed said U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran retains roughly 70% of its missiles, launchers and autonomous drones.
Iran “has basically withstood a significant attack by the United States, and it’s the United States coming to the table as much as the Iranians,” he said, “so I think they feel this is a point where they have leverage. It’s going to be very difficult to achieve those same parameters within the (JCPOA) agreement.”
In related news, Reed said the Russian economy “is beginning to buckle a bit” from Ukraine’s response to Russia’s invasion.
That conflict has now lasted longer than World War I.
“We have to do more to help the Ukrainians,” Reed. “If we did more, both in substance and in diplomacy, I think we could get the Russians to the table and hammer out a solution that stops the fighting and basically reaffirms the existence and independence of Ukraine.”
