On Fox News Sunday today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that military action against Iran — while a “last resort” — is a possibility, and perhaps an eventual necessity.
If sanctions fail, and Iran’s going down the road to get a nuclear weapon, every Sunni Arab state that could would want a nuclear weapon. Israel would be more imperiled. The world would change dramatically for the worse. And if we use military action against Iran, we should not only go after their nuclear facilities, we should destroy their ability to make conventional war. They should have no planes that can fly and no ships that can float.
That’s a “last resort,” Graham said again, before adding that the U.S. should “take military action before they get a weapon.”
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) seemed to agree. “It’s an all-or-nothing deal,” Chambliss said, explaining that Iran’s nuclear capability can’t be wiped out with an air strike. “A full-out military strike is what it would take.”
To be fair, neither Senator was calling for immediate military action against Iran. Both called for sanctions first, while also casting some dispersion on ongoing multilateral negotiations.
“Just continuing the dialogue with them and threatening them with sanctions, if the President’s gonna take that attitude, I don’t think we’re gonna get anywhere,” Chambliss said.
Instead, Graham said, the United States should impose sanctions now, and dial them back if and when Iran meets U.S. inspection demands. “Let’s have ‘Iran Week’ in the Senate and get something done,” he said.
Even Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), also appearing on Fox News Sunday, was willing to discuss the possibility of military action against Iran — though said sanctions come first.
“We are on a path to a nuclear Iran which is an unacceptable course,” he said. “If we are gonna avoid a very painful dilemma of either having to live with that or taking military action to prevent that, which may ultimately be a choice we have to face, we need to act now on the financial and economic side.”
Bayh continued: “We’ve gotta have firm deadlines, the sooner the better, and real consequences if those deadlines aren’t met.”
Late Update: Here’s the video.
