South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has called on the Trump administration to send shipments of weapons directly to the Iranian people so they can lead a grassroots revolution to overthrow their government.
Graham made the suggestion as the U.S. and Iran traded hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz and after President Donald Trump claimed to have sent firearms into the region via Kurdish fighters that had not reached their intended recipients.
Speaking to Sean Hannity of Fox News Monday, the hawkish senator pitched “a Second Amendment solution for the Iranian people” to finally topple the theocratic regime in Tehran, whose grip on power has arguably only been strengthened by its resilient response to Operation Epic Fury.
“If I were President Trump and I were Israel, I would load the Iranian people up with weapons so they can go to the streets armed and turn the tide of battle inside Iran,” Graham said.
“We don’t need American boots on the ground,” he continued. “We’ve got millions of boots on the ground in Iran. They just don’t have any weapons.
“Give them the weapons so they can rise up like we did to destroy this regime. A Second Amendment solution, I think, would go a long way to ending this war.”
Responding, Hannity raised the attempt to pass weapons onto the Kurds.
“My understanding is there have been attempts to do so, and they tried to funnel it through groups…” he began.
“Do it again,” the senator interrupted.
“My understanding is, for example, working with the Kurds, they were stealing 90 percent of the weapons,” Hannity continued.
“Don’t work with the Kurds,” Graham said. “Work with somebody else. And if you can prove to me the Kurds were stealing the weapons, the Kurds will regret that.
“I love the idea of empowering the Iranian people with weapons, a Second Amendment solution to make the Revolutionary Guard’s life hell.
“It’s one thing to be bombed by America. It’s another thing to have your neighbor shoot back at you because they’re tired of being slaughtered.”
Trump said during a phone interview with Fox Sunday that his administration had attempted to supply guns to Iranian protesters during the nationwide demonstrations that took place in late December and January, which saw citizens take to the streets to protest economic hardships and thousands killed by government forces.
“We sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them,” the president said. “We sent them through the Kurds. And I think the Kurds took the guns.”
He made the same complaint in early April and repeated it again Monday, saying he was “very upset with a certain group of people” and warning that they would “pay a big price.”
However, a number of Kurdish groups have denied ever taking delivery of weapons from the U.S., saying they remain reliant on old equipment left over from their earlier battles against the Islamist terror group Isis.
As the U.S. and Iran exchange fire in the strait, jeopardizing the fragile ceasefire, Tehran warned that the former’s Project Freedom initiative granting safe passage to oil ships threatened to become “Project Deadlock” and a new “quagmire” for their enemy, seizing on a word that infuriated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week.
The president has since reverted to the style of extreme rhetoric we saw last month, this time warning Iran will be “blown off the face of the earth” unless it changes its ways.
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