Sen. Lindsay Graham, who was a key part of the effort to convince Donald Trump to go to war with Iran, now has a dire warning for the Iranian government: The next two weeks will be hell.
Graham made the comment Sunday on Fox News, telling Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo that the U.S. was going to “blow the hell out of these people,” and warned that the Iranian regime was now in a death spiral.
“Israel and the United States -- you just wait to see what comes the next two weeks,” Graham told Bartiromo.
“Meaning what?” she responded.
“We're going to blow the hell out of these people. This regime is in a death throe now, it is gonna be on its knees, it’s going to fall, and when it falls we’re going to have peace like no other time, we’re going to have prosperity unlike anyone could ever imagine. Peace brings prosperity. You can’t do it by talking. The Democrats criticize this operation, [but] they didn’t do a damn thing. These men and women in uniform should make us all proud.”
Graham’s comments could be taken as a sign that the Trump administration is planning an escalation of the military campaign against Iran in the coming days.
It could also be confirmation that the White House is considering further escalation of Trump’s warmaking.
Graham added in the same interview: “You see this hat? 'Free Cuba.' Stay tuned. The liberation of Cuba is upon us. We're marching through the world. We're clearing out the bad guys. Cuba is next."
Already, the strikes in Iran have killed more than 1,000 people. The death toll is now spreading around the region as more and more countries are included in what has become a regional war. Iranian strikes have hit numerous countries hosting U.S. forces and other targets such as embassies. Hostilities have also been renewed between Israel and Hezbollah, with rocket fire raining down on Israel from Lebanon and retaliatory Israeli strikes killing hundreds there, too.
Six U.S. service members have also been confirmed killed by the Pentagon in a strike that hit an operations center in Kuwait. On Sunday, a seventh service member was confirmed as having been killed in the region.
The South Carolina senator is one of the loudest critics of the Iranian regime on Capitol Hill and has long backed the use of military force to dislodge it. Graham’s involvement in this latest conflict extends deeper, however, and he has been credited with helping sell the military action to the White House personally and via advice he gave to Israeli officials, including Bibi Netanyahu, who visited Mar-a-Lago in December.
To help make his case, Graham met repeatedly with members of Israel’s intelligence service. He told The Wall Street Journal this month: “They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me.”
His influence and the reporting claiming that the Trump administration was goaded into attacking by news of imminent Israeli plans of attack have led many on both sides of the aisle to question the administration’s seemingly ever-shifting explanation for going to war, which it, on occasion, still claims it hasn’t done.
Administration officials have given various reasons for the necessity of the strikes, which were reportedly ordered just a day after negotiations took place in Geneva, Switzerland, between Iran and the U.S. At those negotiations, both sides publicly committed to another round of talks just days away.
Those explanations have ranged from the prospect that Iran was just days away from developing nuclear weapons or material to the suggestion that Iran’s non-nuclear ballistic missile program would soon have reached a “point of no return” after which it would have become infeasible to take further action against its nuclear program. Still others have centered around Iran’s refusal to negotiate its non-nuclear weapon stockpiles and support for regional militant groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah.
The president has shown no signs of laying out an endgame for the Iranian conflict. He has repeatedly rejected suggestions to resume talks, and U.S. rhetoric has centered on seeking “unconditional surrender” from the ruling regime.
On Saturday, Trump lashed out at the U.K.’s Keir Starmer over the conflict, claiming that it was largely concluded and attacking America’s ally for a late show of support.
"The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "That's OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don't need them any longer - But we will remember. We don't need people that join Wars after we've already won!"
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