Dem Sen. Welch: Might Have to Accept Tolls on Strait to End Iran War

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) responded to a question on how he’d resolve the war in Iran by saying that the current situation “really does raise questions as to what will happen with the strait, whether there will have to be some tolling as an alternative to having to be closed. So, I don’t know what the outcome is going to be.”

Co-host Becky Quick asked, “How do you resolve it at this point? You can’t undo what’s been done. How do you resolve it now?”

Welch responded, “The reality here is that the president believed that, with massive military airstrikes, he’d take care of the problem, he’d decapitate the regime, there’d be an uprising in Iran, that didn’t work. And, in fact, Iran responded with asymmetric use of drones, and it’s closed the strait. So, there’s real — he’s in a box. But the bottom line is, there’s got to be a negotiated deal involving many of the other states.”

Quick then cut in to say, “This is what I don’t understand, the idea of negotiating a deal is pretty complicated. If you’re going to come in and say, never mind, we’re sorry, we’re wrong about this, what do you expect to walk away with from Iran? That’s — there were goals and initiatives, in terms of taking out nuclear, trying to prevent that from happening. Do you go hand — or hat in hand and say, we’re sorry, we surrender, we give up? Like, how do you negotiate a deal with Iran?”

Welch cut in to answer, “The reality is, he’s in a box, and we’re not going to get the outcome that he thought was going to be easily available to him. So, it really does raise questions as to what will happen with the strait, whether there will have to be some tolling as an alternative to having to be closed. So, I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. But the status quo is really detrimental to the well-being of our country.”

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