The two most powerful air forces in the world will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace.

Operation Epic Fury continues, with more casualties, more Middle Eastern countries being drawn in, and more

swagger from Defense Secretary Pete Hex-F.

Flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC, Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only

U.S. and Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it's over.

The administration seems to have a great appetite for describing the theater of war in the moment.

Leaders killed, warships sunk, airspace conquered. Death and destruction from the sky all day long.

But much less so for the more abstract questions of the war. Why did the U.S. go in in the first place?

Why is American blood and money worth the cost?

And what is the ultimate goal?

I'm Hanna Rosen.

This is Radio Atlantic.

Later in the show, I talked to Gene Chaheim, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee, about what legislators can do to get answers.

President Trump, after all, took the U.S. to war without Congress's approval, barely

notifying them.

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Hill on Monday, he made it seem like Israel

had more say in the matter than the branch of the U.S. government that has the actual power to declare war.

Although when Trump was asked the following day, if Israel had forced his hand, he replied,

essentially, that he had a gut feeling that this was the right moment.

We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were

going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.

...