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WASHINGTON Former Senator James Webb, a Virginia Democrat who was elected to the Senate in 2006 on the strength of his record as a combat veteran who opposed the Iraq war, said Monday in an interview on a Washington, D.C., radio station that he is thinking about running for president.

Appearing on WAMU's "Diane Rehm Show" to discuss his new memoir, Webb, a prolific author, Vietnam veteran and former secretary of the Navy, said he is concerned about the direction of U.S. foreign policy and is looking for a way to reengage in the national debate.

"My wife and I are just thinking about what to do next. I care a lot about where the country is, and we'll be sorting that out," he told host Susan Page when asked if he was considering a 2016 run.

Noting that he did not decide to challenge then-incumbent Republican Sen. George Allen, Va., in 2006 until nine months before the November election, he added: "It takes me a while to decide things. I'm not going to say one way or the other."

He said he was concerned that on foreign policy, the nation is now "bouncing from issue to issue without a clear articulation of what the national security interest of the United States actually is." At the same time, he said, he is worried by the growing gap between the rich and poor, which he said could be addressed through better leadership in Washington.

Webb's comments took the political establishment in Virginia and beyond by surprise.

Since declining to run for reelection to the Senate in 2012 after serving only a single term in office, Webb has largely disappeared from the political scene.

He spent little time in office or since leaving it nurturing the kind of political connections that would be needed to run for president, particularly to challenge the kind of fundraising and organizing juggernaut that would be available to former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And Webb never relished the superficiality of the campaign trail, which he might find even more pronounced at the presidential level than in the Senate.

Still, Webb, 68, is considered a maverick.

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Former Va. senator, Vietnam vet considering presidential bid