It’s unknown yet how Iran will respond to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in its territory when Lindsey Graham returns to the Senate next month after summer recess.
But on Wednesday, before heading home to South Carolina for the recess – and only a few hours after the news of Haniyeh’s death broke – the Republican senator dropped two pieces of legislation: making a pitch to batter Iran’s soon-to-be weapons-grade nuclear capability and directly attacking the regime’s economic source that is fueling its proxy groups.
Graham’s point? Iran should be held accountable for any proxy group that attacks American interests or allies.
That accountability would translate into US military forces conducting strikes on Iranian oil refineries and other targets within the Islamic Republic.
In a conversation on Friday with The Jerusalem Post, Graham said the great weakness of the Iranian regime economically is that it has an economy based on fossil fuels, oil, and gas and that without operational refineries, it is out of the oil business.
The US, as well as Israel, should make clear to Iran that if the Houthis continue to terrorize international shipping and go after American naval vessels, if Hezbollah tries to open up another front in the North, and if Hamas continues receiving aid, then the targets on the list will include those within Iran.
“The ayatollah will change his behavior only when the cost to the regime is too high,” Graham told the Post, adding that former President Donald Trump showed how the Iranians respond to pressure and adjust accordingly.
When Graham is back on Capitol Hill in September, he’ll bring the resolutions up for a vote, and “it will become the policy of the United States to stop this charade that these proxies are anything other than Iran.”
“They’re one and the same,” he said.
The Post pressed the senator on how increased force inside Iran could impact any remaining hostages in Gaza who are still alive.
Graham said he told the American hostage families in January that he thought it would take until the middle of this year before the negotiations would be a serious discussion.
Placing pressure on Iran to bring back the hostages
“I’ve told the hostage families early on – the key to all this is for Iran to feel the pressure,” Graham said. “I said it then, and I’m saying it now.”
If the Iranians believe that the hostages need to be released for Tehran’s benefit, he said, they’ll be released.
Graham called the ceasefire deal on the table “promising,” though he said the problem for Israel in the deal is having a phased release, and the Jewish state cannot commit to allowing Hamas to stay in power and pose a future threat.
“Therein lies the problem,” he said. “I think the more Iran feels the pressure of Hamas’s terrorist acts, Hezbollah’s terrorist acts, and the Houthis terrorist acts, the more likely you’d get less terrorism and [will get the] release of the hostages.”
The eight-term congressman said he is still very open to negotiations and thinks they should continue, but only from a position of strength.
“Let’s try to find a hostage deal that will bring them home with honor, and we’ll not only bring them home but set conditions for a better future for Israel and the Palestinians,” he said. “That’s the goal. In the meantime, these escalations have to be dealt with, and I would change the game of how we deal with it.”
Graham said that he fears Iran will take the chaos and confusion of the hostage negotiations and escalating conflicts on multiple fronts as an opportunity to break out on the nuclear front, which is what he said his bills aim to address.
On Friday, when asked if any Democrats had yet vocalized support for his legislation, Graham answered that he heard from a lot of Republicans who said that policy should have been in place a long time ago, but made no mention of any Democratic support.
What about the 'day after?'
The Post asked Graham about the impact on planning for the “day after” if Hamas’s military capability and support from Iran is destroyed, but the terrorist group’s ideology is still prevalent.
“There will be no successful day after that doesn’t change the culture that led to the decades of attacks. There is no way you can avoid the return of Hamas unless you deradicalize the population,” he said, adding that Israel and the US are not capable of doing that, but the Arab world can achieve that goal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right in this regard, according to Graham: that deradicalization and demilitarization have to be part of the day after plan.
Notably, the senator said he would stress that the agent of change he sees above all others is Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Graham noted he would not have said that two years ago following the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident whose death was allegedly ordered by MbS, as the crown prince is known, but now he’s seen major progress inside the kingdom, especially relating to women’s rights and developments modernizing the Red Sea.
Graham said he directly spoke with MbS about building on the Abraham Accords, “doing something new and different between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.”
MbS “has been very open to that idea. He’s willing to change the region under the right conditions,” Graham said. “And my advice to my friends in Israel: Don’t let this moment pass.”