(Al Jazeera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cThis regime is in a death throe now, it is gonna be on its knees, it\u2019s going to fall, and when it falls we\u2019re going to have peace like no other time, we\u2019re going to have prosperity unlike anyone could ever imagine,\u201d Graham told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.<\/p>\n
After the US-Israel joint attack on Iran on February 28, Graham was one of the many Republicans who expressed support for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American,\u201d US President Donald Trump said on March 2.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration justified the attacks, claiming Iran posed an imminent threat, a claim experts said was legally unfounded and an abuse of international law.<\/p>\n
The war has also caused oil prices to top $100, affecting the global economy, as well as drawing retaliatory Iranian strikes on Gulf nations hosting US military assets. Oil and gas production has been hit, fuel tankers have been stranded, and airspace in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has been shut amid the Iranian attacks.<\/p>\n
Several weeks before the latest war in the Middle East began, Graham made numerous trips to Israel to meet the members of Mossad, the country\u2019s intelligence agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll tell me things our own government won\u2019t tell me,\u201d said Graham.<\/p>\n
According to The Wall Street Journal, Graham also spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during these trips, \u201ccoaching him on how to lobby the president [Trump] for action\u201d.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu then showed Trump intelligence that \u201cpersuaded\u201d him to launch the joint war on Iran, said the US senator. Israel has been pushing the US to go to war against Iran for decades, claiming Tehran planned to build nuclear bombs. Iran has reiterated that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes and that it has no ambition to make weapons.<\/p>\nIn this handout photo released by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (L) shakes hands with International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi during a meeting in Geneva on February 16, 2026. [File: Photo by Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs\/AFP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe International Atomic Energy Agency has stated that there is currently no evidence or indication of a systematic, ongoing programme to produce a nuclear weapon by Iran.<\/p>\n
Previous US administrations stayed away from military actions. President Barack Obama signed a nuclear deal in 2015 that put a curb on the Iranian nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. However, Netanyahu opposed the deal. Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 during his first term.<\/p>\n
Graham backed almost all Middle East wars<\/h2>\n Graham, regarded as one of the most hawkish senators, has backed almost all the military interventions in the Middle East in the past two decades, including the disastrous 2003 Iraq War that devastated the country. More than 270,000 Iraqi civilians were killed as a direct result of the war.<\/p>\n
The US invaded Iraq in 2003, causing the country to descend into political chaos and giving rise to armed groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS). US troops withdrew partially in 2009, although some of them remained to train Iraqi security forces.<\/p>\n
Graham also backed military interventions in Syria and Libya, which ravaged the two countries. Libya is still divided, controlled by two competing factions, while Syria\u2019s transitional government has been able to extend control over most parts of the country under President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who became the de facto leader after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. More than 300,000 people were killed, and about half of the country\u2019s population was displaced, causing a refugee crisis that reached Europe.<\/p>\n
During his interview, Graham called on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to launch strikes on Iran. \u201cYeah. I want them to get into the fight. We sell them weapons. Iran is striking their country; they have good capability.\u201d<\/p>\n
In retaliation for the US and Israeli attacks, Iran launched significant missile and drone attacks on Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain, targeting US military bases and critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s interview also suggested that the White House may next be turning its attention to Cuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see this hat? \u2018Free Cuba.\u2019 Stay tuned. The liberation of Cuba is upon us. We\u2019re marching through the world. We\u2019re clearing out the bad guys. Cuba is next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio \u2013 the son of Cuban immigrants \u2013 have made no secret of their desire to bring about government change in Havana, which has been under a US trade embargo for decades after Fidel Castro led the revolution that toppled the pro-US dictator in 1959.<\/p>\n
Washington re-established ties with Havana in 2015 under President Obama, but Trump reversed the policy during his first term as president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Lindsey Graham, the veteran Republican senator who has been pushing for war against Iran for decades, has issued a dire warning to the Iranian government, saying it was worth spending money to \u201ctake this regime down\u201d. \u201cWhen this regime goes down, we are going to have a new Middle East, and we are going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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