Todd Young

CARMEL, Ind. — U.S. Sen. Todd Young attended the U.S. Naval Academy before accepting a commission in the Marine Corps, where he served as an intelligence officer. After discharge, he studied economics at the University of Chicago and later at the School of Advanced Study in London.

The question I posed to the senior senator at Chabad Lubavitch of Indiana last week, about President Donald Trump’s war of choice against Iran, was: You were a Marine intelligence officer. You probably war-gamed out that an attack on Iran would likely close the Strait of Hormuz. How do we get out of this?

The response was akin to one of “hope and prayers.” That’s probably not what you want to hear if you’re a Hoosier motorist grappling with eye-popping gas prices or if you’re a farmer facing skyrocketing diesel fuel and fertilizer costs.

“Well, the president has already worked with our top general and admirals to try and figure this out,” Young responded. “So historically you’ve gotten out of this through naval escorts, and that’s happening.”

“That lasted one day,” I countered.

The White House and U.S. Central Command didn’t communicate the naval escort strategy to allies Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, so access to American air bases for the operation was prohibited, prompting our president to scrap the operation. This has been an astounding trend since Trump launched this war on Feb. 28. It all came as a surprise to our NATO and Persian Gulf allies.

In the hours after Trump ignited this war, Young told WTHR-TV, “I hope all of us will look back and say, despite the procedural weaknesses of this process, everything turned out really well.”

With the naval escort strategy abandoned after a single day, Young told me, “Look, I mean this is a war we are in, and in order to sustainably keep the Strait of Hormuz open, you need to have a negotiation, get our diplomats at a table.”

This is the first time in history that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed, choking off 20% of the global oil supply, potentially ending the American century of maritime dominance. It came after American and Israeli missile strikes took out the top two or three layers of Iranian leadership, a classic decapitation.

With whom are we negotiating?

“That’s not clear to me right now. I aspire to learn that,” Young responded. “Reports indicate the IRGC is playing a substantial role as it relates to the leadership of the country right now. You do the best you can.”

The IRGC is the radical Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which now controls Iran, despite Trump’s insistence that he has achieved “regime change.” The characters in charge now are worse than the ayatollahs and mullahs we killed Feb. 28.

“There is a certain fog of war that happens regardless of whatever sort of strategy you’ve laid out,” Young continued. “And now it’s my job to try and help the president open up the Strait of Hormuz sustainably in the future and remove or secure all the enriched uranium.” He called for this to happen “as quickly as possible.”

As quickly as possible?

It took two years for President Barack Obama’s administration to negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Trump tore up that deal in 2018. These negotiations will be complex, and yet Trump hasn’t gathered a team of diplomats and nuclear arms specialists. He has sent in his son-in-law, his golf partner and, briefly, Vice President JD Vance.

Do they know what they’re doing?

“My belief is we should all be praying for the success of our diplomats and also our warfighters,” Young said.

Will Young seek a war powers resolution? The U.S. Constitution grants Congress, and only Congress, the authority to declare war. So far, Congress has been missing in action.

“It’s unclear how this whole war powers conversation — which ultimately could be reflected in a vote,” Young said.

At Semafor World Economy on April 16, Young said of the Iran war that it was “time to wrap it as quickly as we can.” So while Young desires a “quick” resolution, analyst Karim Sadjadpour told CNN Friday morning that the two sides “are very far apart.”

“We’re closer to a return to conflict than a deal at this point,” he added. “There hasn’t been a lasting ceasefire. There is such an enormous trust gap. They don’t trust anything we say; we don’t trust what they say.

“A lot of this is not political science,” Sadjadpour continued. “It’s psychology. What’s happening in the Strait is lose-lose. The more this persists, even higher oil prices will result. Neither side is benefiting from this double blockade. It’s like a suicide bomber.”

On Friday, Trump told reporters, “If there’s no ceasefire, there will be one big glow coming out of Iran. They’re going to hand us the nuclear weapons. The next day, they forgot what they agreed. I believe they want the deal more than I do.”

Young, the former intelligence officer and a student of global economics, is looking for “leverage.” But he’s also hoping and praying.

“I do think that Congress needs to have a say here,” Young said. “But what that looks like is not entirely clear right now.”