Dem Sen. Reed: We Wouldn’t Hesitate to Do What I Criticized Israel for Doing if We Were in Their Shoes

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), who criticized Israel’s strikes on Iran, said that if the United States faced the same situation from Mexico as Israel does with Iran, it wouldn’t hesitate to do what Israel did. But also argued the U.S. negotiated with the Soviet Union instead of striking it.

Host Jake Tapper asked, “Well, let me just ask you a hypothetical: If Mexico had said that its goal was to rid the world of the United States and they had a nuclear weapons program and the CIA believed that it was within a year of weaponizing enriched uranium and putting it on a ballistic missile capable of killing Americans, do you think the United States would hesitate to do what Israel just did?”

Reed responded, “I don’t think any would, but I think the hypothetical would be contrary to any of the history and facts of our involvement with Mexico.”

Tapper then cut in to say that Reed understands his point.

Reed responded, “Well, your point is, if we were threatened, and, frankly, let’s go back, we were in that situation during the Cold War, where the Soviet Union was capable of striking the United States. And we did not precipitate an attack against the Soviet Union. In fact, what we did was negotiate arms limitations, we negotiated to a point where, finally, we did not have a nuclear conflict, and the Soviet Union collapsed for many other reasons.”

Reed’s feed ended up cutting out after that.

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