Sen. Lindsey Graham dismissed Donald Trump’s optimism over the ceasefire he brokered between Israel and Iran, telling Fox News on Tuesday that he “was not so sure” it would amount to much.
The Republican senator from South Carolina told Fox News’ America Reports that, while he hopes the ceasefire would lead to peace, the agreement meant little to him if Iran continued enriching uranium.
While Trump has promised the ceasefire would bring “LOVE, PEACE, AND PROSPERITY,” international officials have not yet located Iran’s current stockpile of uranium, and U.S. intelligence officials told CNN on Tuesday that early reports showed the Saturday bombing on Iran’s nuclear facilities did not fully destroy them.
“I am not so sure we have solved the problem yet,” Graham said.
He went on to say he would only come around once Iran acknowledges “Israel’s right to exist as a nation” and “the Jewish people’s right to live in peace.”
“When they say that, I will have a sense of optimism I don’t have today,” he said.
Graham’s office did not respond to an immediate request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Graham has been one of Trump’s loudest supporters of using the military to extinguish Iran’s nuclear program, urging him to help Israel “finish the job” once Israel began its assault. He has since urged Israel to “finish the job” and “do what you have to do to bring about regime change.”
He told Fox News on Tuesday that he was not advocating for the U.S. to force a regime change in the nation, but he believed there should be some level of “regime change in this sense: for Iran to abandon its desire to destroy Israel, to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a nation.”
“That to me is not too much to ask of the Iranians,” he said.
Trump backed down on Tuesday from his initial advocacy for regime change, telling reporters on Air Force One that he wanted to see a quieter resolution to the conflict.
“Regime change takes chaos and, ideally, we don’t want to see so much chaos,” the president said.
Still, Graham mused on Tuesday about what regime change could look like—even if it doesn’t involve U.S. forces.
“Regime change can come in a couple of ways,“ he said. ”You can replace the people with folks in Iran who don’t want to kill all the Jews, which I think are most people, or you can get the regime to change its behavior. Until the regime recognizes Israel’s right to exist, this problem doesn’t go away.”
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