‘We have run down our stock of missiles’: Obama asks 'how is this war going' - watch

Former US president Barack Obama has renewed his criticism of president Donald Trump’s war against Iran, saying the conflict has depleted US missile stocks, left American forces and allies vulnerable to attacks. Obama further alleged that the war has also given Tehran leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.Speaking at a campaign rally in Morrow, near Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday, Obama questioned the costs and strategic consequences of the war as both leaders campaigned ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.“How is this war going? Our allies and bases have been attacked. Americans have been killed. Hundreds of Americans have been wounded,” Obama said.“We have run down our stock of missiles, making us more vulnerable, and Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz, where much of the world's oil goes through to get to consumers,” he added.Obama also linked the conflict to rising oil prices, saying, “This is the reason why the price of oil is up.”His latest remarks followed an earlier attack on the war in Ohio, where Obama told Democratic supporters that the conflict had given Iran “veto power” over the Strait of Hormuz. He has also challenged Trump’s rationale for military action, arguing that diplomacy had previously constrained Tehran’s nuclear programme.“I didn’t have to fire any missiles. I engaged in diplomacy,” Obama said, referring to the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated under his administration. He argued that the deal had curbed Iran’s nuclear activities.Trump, when asked about the war earlier on Wednesday, defended his approach and left open the possibility of further military action or a negotiated settlement.“I've done it very effectively and I may have to finish it off, or maybe they'll make a deal, but I'm not sure. Either way, we win,” Trump said.Obama, campaigning for Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, who faces Republican Representative Mike Collins in Georgia, also framed the midterm contest as a question of American values.“There is a moral component to the choices we face right now,” he said, invoking the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who is buried in Atlanta.“We are not going to fix the system that's broken, we're not going to unrig our economy, so long as we've got a culture where anything goes, where people in the highest offices of the land think it's OK to lie and cheat and bully, if we continue to have a culture where money is deemed the only measure of our worth,” Obama added.Trump, meanwhile, campaigned in Chillicothe, Ohio, alongside Republican Senator Jon Husted, who faces former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. The president attacked Brown over immigration, saying of Springfield, Ohio, which received Haitian migrants: “The town went to hell.”Trump also faced protesters during the rally. Responding to a heckler who raised the issue of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he said: “I threw Jeffrey Epstein the hell out of Mar-a-Lago.”Neither Trump nor Obama is on the ballot, but both are campaigning to influence congressional races. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are being contested, with Democrats seeking to take control of the House and narrow the Republicans’ 53-47 Senate majority.With voting already under way and about 40 million ballots cast, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, the Iran war, energy costs and control of Congress are set to remain central issues as voters head to the polls.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.