House

Top Armed Services Democrat says Iran war ‘mistake in large part because of the cost’

by Ashleigh Fields - 04/05/26 1:54 PM ET

Link copied

by Ashleigh Fields - 04/05/26 1:54 PM ET

Link copied

NOW PLAYING

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) on Sunday slammed the war in Iran for swallowing money allocated to military defense and said repeated strikes are only hardening the regime overseas.

“I think this war was a mistake in large part because of the cost and also because of what we talked about earlier in terms of the military being able to achieve a strategic outcome,” Smith, the top Democrat of the House Armed Services Committee, said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday.”

His comments follow President Trump’s plea for $1.5 trillion in defense spending as part of the White House’s fiscal 2027 budget request.

“Look, this is another cost of this war, driving up the costs of our military. This is an over 50 percent increase in the defense budget at a time when we have a debt that’s at like $39 trillion,” Smith said.

“And also, as I keep pointing out, the Republicans cut taxes by like $4 trillion last year. If this is the priority that the president and some in his party say it is, then we ought to be willing to pay for it, and we ought to have congressional authorization for it,” he added.

Smith urged the government to raise taxes for the war instead of putting costs associated with the conflict on a “credit card.”

However, he noted any votes to fund the war could be considered de facto authorization for escalated strikes.

“As a practical matter, if they put out the full $1.5 trillion between base reconciliation and another $200 billion for a supplemental, and Congress votes for that, I think that does amount to approval of the war,” Smith said.

“Like I said, that’s not where I’m at. So I would not be supportive of that because we just don’t have a plan to get out of this better than where we were at getting into it,” he added.

The Washington state lawmaker said the conflict is muddied by uncertain objectives for the U.S. while Iran prioritizes survival.

“What Iran wants to do is survive and be able to inflict pain on us. And that’s a very low bar, as capable as our military is to completely break Iran. It was never really realistic,” Smith said.

“So if we can’t completely break them, what is going to force them to the negotiating table? I don’t think bombing their infrastructure does that. That simply hardens the Iranian people in favor of their regime and against the U.S. So I think it’s a step that would make it harder for us to achieve the objective that we really want, which isn’t just blowing up a bunch of missiles and degrading their capability,” he added.

Add as preferred source on Google