readiness of their troops, etc. i'm confident that our commanders will do the right thing on the ground. thank you-all very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> more live programming coming up this afternoon when former state department and national security council officials discuss u.s. policy toward iran. including the recent u.s. air strike that killed iranian general soleimani. that event hosted by new america here in washington, d.c. and live coverage starts at 3:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. w'd afghanistan war veteran who now studies and writes about foreign policy the cato institute, at the charles koch institute, there are tensions between the u.s. and iran and they have reached new heights. a simple question with a complicated answer, how did we get here? guest: because we are on an

escalatory spiral. a big part of this is that the united states decided to push , includingm pressure getting united states out of the joint comprehensive plan of action, the iran deal. that meant that we were putting pressure on the iranian government, and the iranian government decided to respond in various ways. through proxies and other things. we have seen a spiral. if you think back over the last couple of years, you have had the tanker tax in the gulf, the attack on the saudi oil facilities, the tightening of the sanctions, you have also aen this contractor death and ratcheting up of these tensions. the worry that a lot of people have is that we are on a spiral

.owards a hot war the question is, what's next? in international politics you have to talk about how the enemy gets a vote, the other side gets a vote, and a big part of this is how will iran respond? it's hard to say. you've heard people talking and iran about a military strike on a military target. but who knows, that could be bluster. host: a column in today's usa with therk dupre wits foundation for defense of democracy, saying the killing was part of the maximum pressure strategy. did you view what happened last thursday as part of the maximum pressure strategy that you were talking about? guest: we heard that this was something in response to an imminent danger to americans. if it was part of a maximum pressure campaign, that suggests

it was something planned much longer, that would take some of the steam out of the argument that it was immanence that required this to happen quickly and without the consultation we would have wished for. host: mark esper, mike pompeo and others coming to capitol hill to brief lawmakers, senior lawmakers getting a briefing today. what questions should they be asking? guest: they should be asking what is the plan forward? there is going to be some about the intelligence and so forth, we should be focusing on what next. the united states does not have a strong interest in continuing in these middle eastern conflicts. the president has talked about ending endless wars, yet here we are ratcheting up. so the question, what are american interests here? are they limited question mark i think they are -- are they

limited? i think they are, our most important interest in the gulf is to make sure that there is no effect to long-term oil supplies. is it necessary for the united states to stay and fix the political problems in these regimes that are going through transitions? that have been roiled by activities in the gulf for a long time? including the war against iraq that really upset things? when people talk about iranian influence and what to be have to be worried about? that was cooked in once you toppled saddam. another question is what do you do? areink our interests limited, and therefore doesn't require the united states to try to do regime change, peacefully or otherwise in iran. thehave heard about discussion for peaceful regime change, but then you see john

bolton, talking about something that seems more aggressive on twitter. so really the question is what is the endgame? for these advisors it might be different. some may my -- some may want maximal list activity, to strike iran, that's what was suggested by john bolton. others may want to move beyond this, you have heard people, including that leaked memo or whatever that was yesterday which was quite confusing to people in washington, but ultimately it showed that this was not going to be the policy going forward. but what people want to do? hit this general and now deescalate? or escalate to the next level and push regime change? is ourwilliam ruger guest, if you want to join the conversation, for democrats (202) 748-8000, for republicans (202) 748-8001, for independents (202) 748-8002.

we them ruger, with the charles koch institute and the cato institute studying foreign policy, also a war veteran, when did you serve in afghanistan to mark -- afghanistan? andt: i was there in 2008 2009, general mccarron was there and you saw an increase in american forces after he was replaced. was a learning experience. i am proud to have served my country. of thefter the death general, you released a statement saying the u.s. should use this to extricate itself from middle east entanglements. what does that look like? where should we be leaving? guest: the two for most places are syria and afghanistan. afghanistan is the case in which the president and his team have been working to find a way to extricate ourselves out of that

quagmire. the fact is, we should be proud of what we did in afghanistan for america's safety. we have three main goals when we to treat al qaeda as a terrorist organization that could hit america after 9/11. we needed to punish the taliban for their state sponsorship of al qaeda. and we needed to kill or capture osama bin laden. we have achieved those goals. but the war aims expanded and it became more about creating a central government in kabul and throughout the country. it became about promoting american values, changing the nature of afghan society. the difficulty is that some of those ends were at odds with each other. and some of those are just unrealizable. part of that is a hubris about what american power can achieve.

we have a can-do military and if they are asking you to do something you will try to do it and they do a great job, but there are some things even the american military can't solve. remaking afghan society is one of those. when i was there, some people thought we could really change afghan culture quickly. i think that's really misguided, and i did at the time. some ways, because we have been stuck there and it has cost us a lot of blood and treasure, that hypothesis has been tested. host: somewhere between 50000 and 80,000 u.s. troops, here are some recent numbers, afghanistan has 14,000 u.s. troops, bahrain has 7000, more than 5000 in iraq, jordan close to 3000, kuwait more than 13,000, oman 700 troops, saudi arabia

anywhere around 3000 troops, syria at this point less than a thousand, turkey has an undisclosed number and several u.s. bases in the united arab emirates has 5000. what should the numbers be? maybe not by country but in terms of total troops in the region to keep the u.s. safe and had the u.s. to the influence it has, but also extricate us from some of these places? guest: it goes back to that point, safety. everything we do should be related to america's safety and conditions for economic prosperity. if it has to do with the security of other allies in the region, we have to ask ourselves , do those things tear up? a place like syria, the united states should go to zero. we should not have troops. it's not the job of the united states government to protect the

kurds. it's not the united states's job and aiate between turkey partnership we had with kurdish groups. sharein many ways do not the es that we do. and it's not our job to try to change the government of syria. our job was to try to decimate isis, which we believed was a threat to the united states, that job is done. what's left can be done by those local actors who share an interest, which is why you saw people coming together for that mission. now we need to extricate ourselves. largely because our american military is not meant to adjudicate political disputes which are not necessarily connected to our security and safety. brad, out of minnesota, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning.

pickle, but a lot of someems from negotiating years back and wanting to have .uch a great deal we had an iranian deal that congress was not going to approve, then obama decided that he was going to take it on its , there he made the deal were more votes against the iranian deal than what it took to pass the aca. so now we are in a real bad position. we have a president that went right around congress and decided to do his own thing. but in that agreement he made is that -- they make it sound like it was such a great deal and a great thing for us, but it wasn't, there were two those irn were you would build a nuclear

weapon and do your nuclear testing. those are two areas that were never going to be inspected by come back when they saying it was such a great deal, it was not a great deal. host: we got your point. guest: the fact is that diplomacy is the art of the possible. it is true. try to secure deals where you don't get everything you want, but you try to get what you can and what you need. not a perfect deal, but it did attempt and slow down the ability of iran to become a nuclear power. from everything i have read about this, from the international atomic energy agency as well as our partners and allies, this was having an

impact, and then when we got out of it, the problem is it set us on this motion towards greater conflict as opposed to trying to slowly resolve some of his challenges we have had in our relationship going all the way back to the 1950's with iran. challengelong-running would have had, and it was not something that was going to get perfected overnight. that is one of the things about diplomacy. it is that inch by inch slow process of trying to find ways to build confidence with each trust where some both sides get something out of the deal so that then you can move to something that will hopefully secure a broader peace. sometimes interests collide. we don't all share the same values or have the same interests. some things are zero-sum. the fact was this was an attempt to get there. was it perfect?

it was trying to get there. we are having the talk of war right now instead of job. host: democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i hope i have a simple question. iraq tobeen told by leave the country. at first we said we were leaving . then we said we were not. is it legal for us to stay because we have been asked to leave? guest: that is a great question. one of the things about the is that insue international politics, it is an environment. there is no higher governing authority that can force actors to live up to what they have agreed to or what

people considered to be the international legal structure. it is a state system, and states are the ultimate arbiters of their own interests and security and whether they comply. in the case of respecting state sovereignty, you have seen this all the way back to 1648 when the treaty of west failure formally codified this norm. host: what was that treaty about? guest: what is interesting is it is relevant today. what you have in the 30 years war from 6018 to 1648 is a massive conflagration throughout europe that killed up to one third of the population of central europe at the time. they said we have to get to a situation where we are not intervening in the affairs of other countries. it codified the notion of sovereignty, that essentially

his king, his religion. these were essentially religious wars. one principality was not going to try to dictate what religion was practiced in another one or who was going to rule or the domestic politics of that other place. it was essentially going to be a peace treaty around we will do our thing, you do your thing. as long as we don't engage in aggression against each other, we can live in that situation. the u.s. has been someone who has largely rejected some of that framework over the last 20 years. when we have seen a campaign against rogue nations, at the end of the cold war, people were looking around for another mission for the u.s. the rogue nation doctrine emerged. we were going to go after countries that we believed were led by rogue dictators that would threaten international

peace and stability. since 9/11, we have engaged in those things, in some cases because we believed our safety was threatened, and in other cases because we were trying to promote our values. think of libya. libya is a place where we violated libyan sovereignty stenciling to protect people in the eastern portion of the country. that led to a regime change war. libya is a basket case. in. have flowed efforts-intentioned were undermined. the spirit of this system was valuable because it understood that things could get out of control if states were going to intervene in the affairs of other states. we have seen this in syria and iraq. currently 800 u.s. military bases in more than 70 countries and territories around the world at a cost of hundreds

of billions of dollars a year. what would you propose? what makes us safe? guest: a lot of those are necessary. we need to have a military that is second to none that can determine countries -- deter countries from trying to harm our interests. i'm not someone that thinks the world would be peaceful if we just left it alone. there are real dangers in the .orld that we need to confront nuclear weapons are a big part of that when it comes to state actors. having special operations forces and intelligence community that is keeping track of terrorist organizations that have the intent and capability to harm us, that is important. some of these missions like in syria, are they necessary? things like iraq, if iraq does not want us there, and if our presence is creating more headaches for america's security

and interests, maybe we should be getting out of there as well. afghanistan is another case where we have met our goals largely. we can pull out because the costs are greater than the benefits we are reaping. this is not about disengaging. we can engage in productive ways. trade is one way where there are mutually unofficial agreements that happened between countries. diplomacy, using our diplomatic corps in the state department to russell with some of these -- restle with some of these challenges. in california, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. mr. rogerke to thank for his statement because the president we have right now is

starting to sound so dangerous. he is everything not what mr. roger has mentioned about being diplomatic and all the other engagement on a reasonable -- all i know is that when i hear of what president trump has now ine of leading us into war, just want to let you know that there are a lot of americans out there that are fearful. host: do you have a definition of what the trump doctrine is? guest: that is the $64,000 question right now. some people would have said before this that maybe he has some instincts towards a more restrained approach to the world in terms of reducing america's commitments, ending endless wars, but also being top and gh and tryingtou

to cut through and engage in personal diplomacy as we saw .ith kim in some ways because of tough rhetoric that may have set us back temporarily, but also because there has been a freeze in many ways because washington has been resistant to change in many ways. i think some part of that is there. on the other hand, what we saw with soleimani is not an example of restraint. that is an example of taking a gamble. we will see what happens. does this mean we have escalation, or does this serve as deterrence against the iranian regime? office,eld one elected the library trustee in my hometown. i'm not sure that sets me up for being president. host: where are you from? guest: i'm from plastic on, new hampshire, proud grayness

stater. host: william roger taking your calls. this is linda in new york. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. ump should have never gotten out of the iranian nuclear deal. president obama got the ball rolling. it might not have been perfect, but he also, just like with the affordable care act, it might need to between or changed -- be tweaked or changed, but at least you have a base to start with. , his rhetoric, his knee-jerk responses are many for many americans -- are very scary for many americans. there seems to be no connect between the executive and the

defense department with this draft going out. we made a mistake. this is not kindergarten. that seems how it is running. guest: it is easy to monday morning quarterback the defense department, the state department, the administration. governing is difficult. in many ways this was imprudent. we have been making imprudent decisions for 30 years in foreign policy. i don't think this is particular to right now. i think the u.s. for 30 years has been engaging in activities that has undermined security. if you think back to the own goal of myate goa adult life, that would be the iraq war. this was fought under pretenses that i am surprised people..

people bought. we did not need to do that. we unleashed a lot of difficulties in the region we did not need to. iran's influence in iraq is a direct result of toppling saddam hussein. if you think about the changes we have seen in the middle east and west africa, a lot of those changes are a result of our activity in iraq and afghanistan. missouri, bill, independent. caller: good morning. think you for taking my call. i agree on the iraq war. what i don't understand is why the congress jumped all over the president for what he did?

he was an iranian general, i agree, but he was one of or the top terrorist organizers in the world. ban.roke the travel let's wait and see what our if he wasto say lining up another terrorist attack somewhere. the president took action, got rid of him. now i think it is time for congress, instead of jumping all over him, now it is time for congress to give him the war power authority act. is my thinking wrong? guest: i don't think anybody should mourn the death of general soleimani. this is someone who had been a thorn in the u.s.'s side. you can understand the motivations of iran, but that does not necessarily mean the

u.s. should be happy about that or sad when you see us hit some of those people that are for some of the challenges we faced in iraq. you can disagree with the war in iraq and not want to see harm done to americans. i think that is an important distinction between disagreeing with actions of american foreign-policy and whether we should want us to achieve our goals when we get into these. in afghanistan, i have a lot of problems with our approach, the counterinsurgency approach. a lot of soldiers did and do. everybody has been trying hard to meet those goals. a is important to separate critique of american foreign-policy, our maximum pressure campaign, and whether we should have sympathy for this iranian. host: do you think this somehow

authorizationirst of the use of military force in 17 years? guest: it doesn't seem like there is a lot of enthusiasm for war around the country or on capitol hill. the democratic house is talking about trying to limit the president rather than giving him some blank check or more limited authorization. i would be surprised. you don't know. counterattacks and american forces are harmed, you could see a call for a more forceful response. that is why i think we need to get off this escalate or a letter. ory ladder. iran really think war with at this point in history is ?oing to be a good thing

russia is a basket case. it is not a great power, but china is a bigger concern. the administration wanted to push that way just like obama did with the pivot to asia, but we have been unable to extricate ourselves from these quagmires in the middle east. i don't think there is a lot of desire to seek ourselves in deeper. roger, vicem president of policy and research at the charles koch institute, and with us this morning taking your phone calls. richard is in new york, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. mr. roger, i want to ask if you that we might get back to past -- but ashe

a veteran of a previous war, i want to ask whether it be public can ask for a return to the day in foreign-policy when politics ended at the waters edge so that foreign-policy was a bipartisan matter and to raise the stakes further, we got back to the situation where congress embraces its authority to make foreign-policy and delivers a foreign-policy or outline of a foreign-policy as to when we go to war and when we don't, when we have diplomatic encounters and when we don't. if we could get back to the toes that are attributed colin powell that when we do go to war, unlike what george w. bush did in 2003 when we have allies, we have public support, a massive force, and we have an

objective, and we get out when it is over. we see presidents of both in and beingling duplicitous about what they say they are doing, whether it was lyndon johnson or president obama and hillary clinton in bush in iraqge w. to topple saddam hussein without a clear plan of what came afterwards. host: thank you for the call. guest: these are some great questions from the caller. you mentioned the colin powell doctrine. that is a better approach to war making them what we have seen. the issue of congress being a coequal branch of government is an important one. article one of the constitution puts congress in the driver's seat when it comes to warmaking.

,nfortunately, for a long time all the way back to the beginning of the cold war or even earlier, you have seen an erosion of congressional power in this area. you might say this is because of grasping,ive branch but it has also been with complicity of congress. congress has wanted in some ways inabrogate its authority this area. i think it is a real dereliction of duty. congress should be willing to stand up and take votes on whether we go to war. framerse or's vision -- vision was that there would be -- around these decisions. the fact that congress has simply allowed the exact a branch to make all these decisions, and you could say there was some training in in the 1970's with the war powers resolution, but the problem with

the war powers resolution is not what a lot of in-service say, which is that it ties the hands of the president, which violates articletwo powers, but two is not clear about what the powers of the president are, but article one is very clear. i think the war powers resolution is that it actually gives up too much power to the executive branch. why should the president be allowed to engage in conflict abroad that is not merely defensive without congress authorizing that when there is not in minutes? with the constitution does allow the u.s. is being attacked him the president has the ability to repel. in syria, there is an unauthorized war. there's not a question of time that if we don't do something up. new york goes host: if william roger was to

rewrite the war powers resolution, what would you do? guest: is some of that necessary? should we be harkening back to article one section eight? host: that congress has the ability to declare war? guest: not just the ability, but that is its power. our system of government is one in which there are enumerated powers that each of the branches get. it is not as if the constitution is silent on that. is the congress should be in the driver seat on declaring war. the president makes war. the court has decided to essentially stay out of these fights. in a variety of court cases during the cold war when a lot of the started to come to the four, it's sort of hunted on of puntedre, it sort

on this. congress only has blunt instruments to deal with the executive branch. it can engage in impeachment. that is an extremely blunt instrument. rebuildways we need to a culture in which the american public expects its representatives to engage on these issues and hold them accountable. foreign-policy is not a pocketbook issue. a lot of americans don't pay much attention to it. the cues for a lot of the cold is he isost-cold war the commander in chief, so the president should deal with this. if something goes wrong, congress can complain. saying, yes, i

authorized the war in human, and look what it has led to. host: this is duncan, a democrat. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. years iner veteran, 22 the u.s. army, i am deeply concerned with what is going on in our country in regards to deploying our soldiers, military members. it is a really sad deal when mr. roger spoke so openly about our branches of government and the way they are supposed to work. me thatreally sadright now, ito we have a one-man band dictating that willle thing take place in our nation. i was a drill sergeant at fort

benning here several years. that we areung kids deploying in harms way. to defend ourath , andry and nation for harm our politicians feel they need to, but going back to our branches of government, when our -- we are in deep trouble. it is a serious matter. guest: this is one way to honor the sacrifice our veterans make, the ultimate sacrifice that some may, but also the sacrifice of their membersg

deployed, having to fight in s harryften time scenarios, making sure we are only sending americans into harms way when it is absolutely necessary. i think our approach over the last 30 years has gotten away from that. too often people in washington have been willing to send men and women from across the country into these situations without a clear strategy, appreciating the alternative approaches. it is the easy button, if you will. i think the afghan papers that the washington post published recently shows you some of the at the the core -- rot core of our strategic decision-making. host: what was the worst example from that series of reports? guest: look at what the inspector general talked about, where it was very clear that

there was massive waste, that there was not a clear sense of how we were going to achieve our goals. aud the inspector for making sue was keeping the eye on what was happening there so we had a better accounting of this. one of the challenges when you have such a huge defense industry, when you include the defense department's budget plus veterans care and other parts of departmente in the of energy, you are talking a trillion dollar budget, it is really hard pressed to have accountability around those kinds of numbers. for a long time the pentagon was not able to appropriately and effectively audit itself. an audit is not going to fix the problem. is anggest problem

american culture that sees us as needing to be engaged everywhere and shape and dictate the nature of the international system at great cost and in a way that does not match up to our most pressing challenges. host: john socko has been on c-span 26 times, including several times on this program, including may last year when he came on to talk about efforts on reconstruction in afghanistan. you can see that on our website. willie, republican. caller: the problem is this syndrome makes it a disposition. we are not at war. at least in our minds. the problem is iran, in the minds of their leadership, maybe not some of the young folks, but in the minds of their

leadership, they have been at forwith the great satan decades. that is what makes this a difficult issue. somebody mentioned about the trunk doctrine. voters, itrump thought the trunk doctrine would have been like a snake where all or most of the u.s. assets, including troops and civilians home untilssets come abroad a domestic threat and then we put all our efforts together like a snake and strike to solve that particular issue. i would have think , they on the navy uniform are allowed to wear the navy jet, and it says don't tread on me, which is a snake.

the idea of being strong and powerful but really kind of careful until you actually have to strike is something that brings true to me. this is a approach that we have been using for the last 30 years, and i think that is the hallmark of it. be strong, watch the world, hit where you need to, but don't stay past your welcome date. don't stick around and engage in things that get us into things that are not necessarily helpful and that sink us into these quagmires. host: this is james from tennessee, and independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i have two questions. i appreciate your comments. i don't appreciate the categorization that we are going

to war with iran. i don't think anyone in the administration tanks we are going to war with iran. withe we don't go to war iraq. i don't think that was our intention. we've heard about all of the pluses and minuses of this attack, and i think we should stand back and not prejudge the whole situation. number two, go back to the iraq war. i know it was criticized. would you rather have saddam hussein in power with a nuclear , which was his stated goal to deliver that on israel, when he was alive. that is what we would be having now if we had not gone through that war. it was a mess.

now at least we have a republican, and we have the citizens participating -- think the question of where the president goes is not clear. we have seen a president that has some instincts towards being intocareful about getting and staying in some of these conflicts. what i would love to see is for the president to try to push forward on afghanistan, extra skate -- extricate ourselves from there, and one day to get out of iraq so we don't have these targets there that could be hit like we saw for the contractor was killed and to provide a flashpoint for relations. focusk really trying to on great power competition is a

move in the right direction. that is a better approach than i think these wars like we saw in libya, like we are fighting in syria, and that would be better. i think the other thing to point out is if the views that i toress here are interesting the audience, there are a lot more people sharing these things out there. some of the activities of groups like defense priorities or the new quincy institute, people like ro khanna, people like on if it tot site -- different sides of the aisle, you are seeing more grants data jeez then we have seen in a long time. unfortunately we really did not have a conversation that we needed, what is our proper role in the world? that rakee seeing open, and i think that trump was less a cause than a symptom of that debate, but the fact is he

has broken some of the china, and that has been productive, kind of a creative disruption he is challenging some of the assumptions about alliances and burden sharing, how to do some of the diplomacy, whether we should rethink commitment to these endless wars. on the others you have people like david betray us talking about how we should stay in places like afghanistan, and those are two very different asians. i think we need to really have this kind of intellectual fight about what should america do going forward. i think that it is not a simple answer. there are good arguments on both sides i'm a that's why we need a robust marketplace of ideas. we have not had that for so long. back during the iraq war, or a lot of the questions that you imagine being asked know about that?

were they being debated? there is a kind of rush for everybody to support it. look what happened. i think it's healthier and it will be more healthy going forward because of the fact there is more energy around alternative vision. host: you can read william's the charles koch institute.org. we appreciate your >> "washington journal" mugs are available at the c-span online store. check out the "washington journal" mugs and see all of the c-span products. >> our live campaign 2020 coverage continues thursday at 7:00 p.m. eastern with president donald trump in toledo, ohio, at a keep america great rally. watch live on c-span2, on demand

at c-span.org, or listen on the go with the free c-span radio app. >> the president is referring to the war powers resolution that law is pretty complicated but one thing it does is says if the president puts troops abroad into hostilities or imminent hostilities an we haven't been attacked, if he does that, he needs to follow the law which says notify congress. tell them what you're doing. justify it. what's the legal authorization. what's the