This week on conservative crossroads, the war with Iran, is it in America's best interest?

Rebecca Heinrich says yes.

Kurt Mills says no.

The war with Iran, coming up on conservative crossroads.

Now.

Welcome back to Conservative Crossroads, the podcast where conservatives lean into their differences

rather than dismiss them.

I'm Henry Olson, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and your host

for this episode.

Our topic today is the Iran War. Is it good or bad for United States' interests?

Rebecca Heinrichs, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, thinks it is in America's interest,

while Kurt Mills, executive director at the American Conservative, thinks it is not.

Each person will have five minutes to present their opening views and explain them for the audience.

They'll then mutually question each other for about 40 minutes, and then we will go in reverse order with two minutes for closing statements.

We determined at the outset of the episode that Kurt will go first. Kurt,

you're up. Thanks. Look, I think it's incumbent upon us to examine the counterfactual.

So just imagine the United States had not engaged in this war starting on February 28th.

Imagine the United States had not undertaken the 12-day

war in June of 2025. Imagine if the United States had seen through the negotiations last spring.

Everything had already happened between the Iranians, the United States, everything that had

already happened between the Iranians and this president of the United States, there was a deal on offer in April 2025, which was better

than Barack Obama's JCPOA. There was rumors of basically above ground inspections, a lower

...