Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that President Donald Trump has no way out of the military conflict with Iran, telling ABC’s “This Week” that the administration entered the fight without a defined objective and is now trapped by its own decisions.
Kelly’s remarks came during an interview with anchor Martha Raddatz, who noted that the president had declined to accept any agreement with the Iranians and that Tehran appears to believe it should control the Strait of Hormuz — a position Raddatz said she doubts will be accepted. She then put the question to Kelly directly: with the country already in the conflict, what comes next, and does the U.S. simply walk away?
‘Without a strategic goal, without a plan’
Kelly, a Democrat and retired Navy captain, responded that the administration launched the campaign without the basic architecture of a military engagement.
“The president got into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline, without an exit strategy,” Kelly said. “He’s stuck.”
The senator also criticized the personnel handling the negotiations, referring dismissively to the president’s son-in-law and a longtime associate described as a golf and real estate friend. Kelly argued that the talks should instead be conducted by professionals who understand Iran and how to negotiate with its leadership.
He drew two firm lines on what the United States cannot accept: leaving the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control, and allowing Tehran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Both outcomes, he said, are unacceptable.
A return to the pre-war status quo
Kelly went on to argue that the president’s preferred outcome is essentially the situation that existed before the conflict started — a return to a state of affairs in which Iran was not racing toward a nuclear weapon and the strait remained open. He contrasted that with the human cost of the current campaign, saying it has left more than 20 service members dead and 800 injured.
“This thing has been a disaster, and it’s been a mistake,” Kelly said, attributing the outcome to what he called the failed leadership of the president.
Control of the Strait of Hormuz at the center of the debate
The exchange on ABC’s Sunday program highlights the central question now facing the administration: how to wind down a conflict whose stated aims were never clearly defined publicly, and whose endgame remains unsettled. Raddatz framed the dilemma in blunt terms, noting that the Iranians appear to believe they should hold sway over the strait and asking whether the U.S. simply departs.
Kelly’s answer was that the U.S. cannot cede the waterway — a critical chokepoint for global oil shipments — but also should not have arrived at this position in the first place. His critique rested on the gap between the costs already incurred and any identifiable strategic gain.
The senator’s comments add to the broader Democratic criticism of the administration’s handling of the conflict, framing it as a case study in entering a war without a plan for ending it. Kelly leaned heavily on that theme, listing the missing pieces — goal, plan, timeline, exit strategy — as a sequence of failures that left the president with no clear off-ramp.
According to Breitbart, which published a transcript of the segment, the interview aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026/09/27/sen-kelly-trump-stuck-in-iran-war-without-an-exit-strategy/