U.S. Sen. Susan Collins pressed a top military official Wednesday on whether he anticipated Iran\u2019s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a move that has led to skyrocketing fuel prices.<\/p>\n
Collins and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky were the only two Republicans to recently join Democrats in a failed war powers resolution seeking to rein in President Donald Trump\u2019s unpopular war in Iran, which has exceeded 70 days. <\/p>\n
The Iran war is a major factor in the national political landscape facing Collins, whose run for a fifth term is among the biggest elections in the country this year. The five-term senator has also faced repeated criticism from likely Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner, who accuses her of helping advance a new \u201cforever war\u201d in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Questioning Gen. John Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a hearing on Capitol Hill, Collins cited a dramatic impact on oil supplies across the world, along with precedent during the Iran-Iraq war where tankers were fired upon in the strait.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a different plan almost daily dealing with this problem,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Caine said he would not get into details related to the private advice he\u2019d given the president.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should rest assured, as should the American people, that we cover and consider the full range of things in our careful consideration of military actions in the advice and options we provide our civilian leaders,\u201d Caine said.<\/p>\n
Collins did not question Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Iran. The secretary faced a barrage of criticism from Democrats who questioned the justification for the war. Hegseth maintained it was crucial Iran did not gain a nuclear weapon. Several Democrats agreed but said there was no imminent threat that required engagement.<\/p>\n
Collins instead focused on Bath Iron Works, telling Hegseth she was \u201cpuzzled\u201d and \u201calarmed\u201d that the Pentagon\u2019s roughly $1.7 trillion 2027 budget requested included just one of the Bath-built Navy\u00a0destroyers. That\u2019s down from two this fiscal year and three in 2025, the senator said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat reduction \u2026 creates uncertainty for the industrial base,\u201d Collins said. \u201cThere needs to be a steady demand signal for DDG-1s in order to keep the yard operating at all phases, from cutting the initial steel to completing the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Sen. Susan Collins pressed a top military official Wednesday on whether he anticipated Iran\u2019s closure of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[35039,102,101],"class_list":["post-110729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-explain","tag-hormuz","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116563378389507386","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}