Video: Sen. Mark Warner Says Even Trump, “with all his bluster,” Will Be Pressed “to find a way to claim victory” in Iran; “Now it becomes a question of what is the least-bad option”

Speaking on MSNOW, Sen. Mark Warner commented on Trump’s war with Iran; see below for video and highlights (bolding added by me for emphasis of some key points).

• “I don’t think any of the president’s objectives when he started this war of choice are going to be met in terms of regime change, getting the enriched uranium, cutting back on ballistic missiles. And remember, before this war, the idea that some country would extract a toll through the Strait of Hormuz was not even discussed. So I think the war needs to come to an end. And I think Donald Trump will even be pressed, with all his bluster, to find a way to claim victory.  But however we can end this, I don’t know how we come out in a better situation than we were before this war started. So if he claims it will be in phases, so be it. Let’s see the details. But I’m not sure why he keeps adding more pressure. The idea that somehow all of the Arab states in the region  – the Saudis, the Qataris and others – are going to join the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia has already rejected that today. It feels like he’s building the hurdles even higher for him, to even in Trump speak, be able to claim any kind of victory out of this misguided choice.”
• “It was never a good idea to start this war of choice back in February. Now it becomes a question of what is the least-bad option. The idea that the American military, as good as it is, is going to be able to bomb Iran into subjugation. I think we found is not true. Or if we were to go after all of the economic infrastructure in a dramatic way, clearly all the Gulf allies, Iran still has enough capacity to wreck the infrastructure of our Gulf allies. And unfortunately, Israel as well, because we’ve used so many of our interceptors. So if bombing isn’t going to get us there, if the only way we’re going to accomplish the president’s goals is to put thousands of American troops on the ground for a never-ending war in the Middle East, then it comes down to what is the least-bad option. And the least-bad option may be trying to get us back to some status quo of where we were before we started the war. But unfortunately, with an overhang on the Strait of Hormuz that, frankly, didn’t exist before this war started.”
• “Ms. Gabbard and I had a lot of differences…I wish her well with her husband. But we need now to have a DNI that’s willing to speak truth to power, that doesn’t politicize our information. When you intelligent intimidate the intelligence community to try to receive answers that the policy makers want rather than their straight truth, then you undermine the value of the intelligence community. And I do think Ms. Gabbard did that oftentimes. And we’ve seen uniformed military leaders of the NSA and the DIA and other agencies fired, simply for some claim of not political loyalty. That is very dangerous. But I cannot imagine with the clarity of some of the intelligence, for example, about the number of Iranian missiles that remain, or the fact that the Iranians, of course, would strike our Gulf allies or, of course, strike and take over and shut down the the Strait of Hormuz, which, by the way, you don’t need a navy, you just need hundreds of these little speedboats. I mean, all of this has been reported repeatedly in the open press. So I can’t believe the intel community is not sharing that with the president. And even if not, it is widely reported in the open-source press. So he’s got to be getting this information.”
• “Listen, I have found [CIA Director John] Ratcliffe a better partner than many of the other Trump appointees. He wouldn’t have been my choice. But he is a better partner than many of the others. And I find that the CIA, I think, is still, for the most part, able to do its job without the kind of interference that we’ve seen in some of the other [intelligence community] agencies.”
• “I was in the cell phone business…co-founder of a company named Nextel that was a major provider in the 80s. So this is something I actually know a little bit about the idea that, you know, following in the mode of the Trump Bible and Trump shoes and Trump whatever, the idea that they branded a phone that it was going to be made entirely in America, took, I think, deposits of $50 or $100 from close to 500,000 constituents around the country to get a preorder. It’s a scam. It’s a scam. This phone, there’s no phone made from scratch in America like this. It had to be put together with components from Asia. It may be put together in America, but that’s not American-made. You know, the the price that has been offered and the plan that’s been offered, the open market offers cheaper prices with better, better plans. Other than getting the Trump brand on this, I think Americans have been hoodwinked. But this is an administration, whether it’s the Trump mobile, whether it is the billion dollars for the ballroom or the billion eight of taxpayer money for the slush fund. I’ve never seen an administration where both the president and his closest allies are enriching themselves as much. And yes, I have written the so-called Trump phone CEO to try to get answers on what I think are completely erroneous claims, and anybody in the cell phone industry will say the same.”