“I think everybody running except Rand Paul could get a better deal with the Iranians”, Graham said after snubbing President Obama for being “too soft” on the USA nuclear deal in the works with Iran.
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“Is there a question?” an uncomfortable-looking Tapper asked as Graham chuckled to himself and rubbed his eyes.
Any military action would run up against obstacles, including the lack of good intelligence on the country, its military, its infrastructure, and its leaders’ intentions, dating to Iran’s shutting down CIA operations in the country, USA officials speaking on condition of anonymity have said in the past. If a military conflict were necessary, he said, Tehran would lose.
“We’re not leaving until we get this right”, Graham said.
“I’ll put her down as undecided.”
“Today Sen. Graham shows how little he understands about American foreign policy and how to stop making the same mistakes”, Doug Stafford, chief strategist for Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, emailed The Daily Caller in response to Graham’s comments. “It’s ’cause I want to defend a nation”.
Currently, the three-term senator doesn’t look poised to qualify for the first debate, but if he were to make it, or participate in those down the road, he has the potential to influence the debate in an already hawkish field.
Graham spoke extensively on what he called the threat of radical Islam-a term that President Obama has refused to use-and compared the Islamic State’s mission to that of Nazi Germany.
Graham, who has previously said he wouldn’t have supported invading Iraq knowing what he knows now, was also somewhat critical of ex- President George W. Bush.
An anti-war protester on Wednesday interrupted a public interview that CNN’s Jake Tapper was conducting with Sen. “There would be an American component during the building and the holding”, Graham said in apparent reference to the massive reconstruction needed in Syria, of which he said regional actors would foot the bulk. “Plenty of blame to go around here”.
Despite his proposals, Graham said he would take back one of the ground invasions he helped launch.
While Graham has consistently polled low compared to the crowd of 16 Republican candidates vying for the party’s nomination, it’s still early in the race with the first party caucus in Iowa tentatively scheduled for February 1, 2016.
Trump has said repeatedly that many illegal immigrants are “killers” and “rapists”.
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Graham said that, if elected, he would deploy thousands of ground troops to Iraq to fight the Islamic State terror group and send special forces to “hunt the leadership of ISIS morning, noon, and night”. He also lamented that GOP House members have reflexively rejected Senate attempts at immigration reform.
