Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that "Cuba's next" following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders, adding that the days of the Havana regime "are numbered."
In an interview with Fox News, Graham praised President Donald Trump's foreign policy record and suggested further geopolitical shifts could follow the escalation in the Middle East.
"President Trump finished the job that President Reagan failed to do," Graham said, adding that Trump is now "the gold standard for Republicans" on foreign policy. Referring to Venezuela, he said, "Maduro? Everybody talked about him; well, Donald Trump's got him in jail." He then turned to Cuba: "They're gonna fall. This communist dictatorship in Cuba? Their days are numbered."
Graham also outlined his next priority after the Iran strikes: advancing normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," he said that "when this regime can no longer threaten the region, I'm going to build on what I did with President Biden, to try to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalize." He described such an agreement as "historic," adding that "taking the regime down is a big deal."
He also emphasized that the United States would not deploy ground troops in Iran:
"There will be no American boots on the ground. This is not Iraq, this is not Germany, this is not Japan. We're going to free the people up from the terrorist regime. And the goal is not only to help the Iranian people to chart a new destiny, to make sure no matter who takes over in Iran, no matter who it is, no matter who the people pick, they cannot become the largest state sponsor of terrorism"
Graham's had ramped up calls for regime change in Tehran in the last few weeks before the attack. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in February, he urged Trump to overthrow Iran's leadership, warning that failure to do so "will be a disaster." He said inaction would signal that "you can't rely on America" and that the West "don't do a damn thing" when confronted with major challenges.
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