and wonder why the war started to begin with if these perceptions are accurate, end quote.

Now, time will tell if Lindsay Graham or Ted Cruz or Roger Wicker, for that matter,

these right or die allies of the presidents who have today become voices of dissent over the framework or outlines of a deal

with Iran will fall into line as they have every single time of the last decade.

But in the same way the broken clock is right twice a day, Lindsay Graham is getting to a fundamental

truth and unanswered question

about the war with Iran. It has never been clear to the vast majority of the American people

why the war was started to begin with or what the objectives were, when we would know we'd

succeeded. In the early days of the war, Donald Trump had called

for regime change very publicly, saying help is on the way. But Iran's brutal dictator has been

replaced with that brutal dictator's son. Then it was said that the point of the war with Iran,

this was something Marco Rubio said publicly,

was to eliminate Iran's missile program and nuclear program and degrade their military.

But we know that U.S. intelligence believes that Iran has retained significant military capabilities and that the nuclear program has hardly been damaged. Now, as Tom Nichols

writes in the Atlantic, quote, now the president will end up having to sign off on a set of

terms that will likely make the JCPOA, the Iran deal signed by the Obama administration,

look demanding by comparison. And the U.S. proposals, the New York Times reports, quote,

focuses on ending Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, something that was not an issue before the war started.

In any case, Donald Trump may not get the chance to sign off on any deal as the ceasefire is looking very shaky at the moment.

U.S. forces launching strikes overnight.

What CENTCOM said were, quote, self-defense strikes on missile sites and Iranian boats that

were planting mines. Iran's regime is threatening to retaliate against these new strikes.

...