Golf diplomacy: Lindsey Graham tells Trump he has ‘generational opportunity’ to take on Iran
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
Welcome to Washington Secrets, your guide to who is taking a beating and who is getting beaten. Today we take you to the fairways of West Palm Beach and Lindsey Graham’s latest pitch for tougher action on Iran, and to the Capitol Hill Club where Republicans were plotting last night how to navigate the midterm electionss without losing the Senate …
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s message to President Donald Trump was clear: The president has a “generational opportunity” to reshape the Middle East by toppling Iran’s leaders.
The South Carolina senator used one of his regular rounds of golf earlier this month to make one of his regular arguments, Secrets can reveal, that it was time to take on the mullahs.
But this time it came against a ticking clock and a buildup of American forces in the Middle East.
And he tweaked his message to lean into one of the president’s current obsessions — his legacy.
They played 18 holes at the president’s West Palm Beach club nearly two weeks ago. Less than a week later, Trump announced he was deploying a second aircraft carrier group to the region, expanding his options for strikes on Iran.
A former administration official said Graham’s golf course pitch described a limited amount of time for action.
“The message is that this is a generational opportunity to transform the Middle East, a transformational opportunity,” he said.
“Iran has never in its 47 years experienced this kind of economic collapse, political collapse, environmental collapse, military collapse, and has no internal legitimacy, with massive infighting.”
While Trump weighs his options, mindful that any intervention will attract the anger of Steve Bannon and others on the ultrapopulist wing of his movement, Graham is lobbying for regime change.
He is uniquely placed for that conversation. Graham is one of the best-known Republican Iran hawks and has earned a position where he can disagree with the president and still be invited to the golf course where Trump plays during winter weekends.
He has made similar arguments in public. This week, during a visit to Israel, Graham warned that leaving the Tehran leadership in place risked one of Trump’s pet projects — the Abraham Accords, which have rebuilt relations between Israel and a string of Arab nations.
“If after all this, [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei is still standing, then I think the Abraham Accords will eventually fall, and Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis will get stronger,” he said.
In …
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
Welcome to Washington Secrets, your guide to who is taking a beating and who is getting beaten. Today we take you to the fairways of West Palm Beach and Lindsey Graham’s latest pitch for tougher action on Iran, and to the Capitol Hill Club where Republicans were plotting last night how to navigate the midterm electionss without losing the Senate …
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s message to President Donald Trump was clear: The president has a “generational opportunity” to reshape the Middle East by toppling Iran’s leaders.
The South Carolina senator used one of his regular rounds of golf earlier this month to make one of his regular arguments, Secrets can reveal, that it was time to take on the mullahs.
But this time it came against a ticking clock and a buildup of American forces in the Middle East.
And he tweaked his message to lean into one of the president’s current obsessions — his legacy.
They played 18 holes at the president’s West Palm Beach club nearly two weeks ago. Less than a week later, Trump announced he was deploying a second aircraft carrier group to the region, expanding his options for strikes on Iran.
A former administration official said Graham’s golf course pitch described a limited amount of time for action.
“The message is that this is a generational opportunity to transform the Middle East, a transformational opportunity,” he said.
“Iran has never in its 47 years experienced this kind of economic collapse, political collapse, environmental collapse, military collapse, and has no internal legitimacy, with massive infighting.”
While Trump weighs his options, mindful that any intervention will attract the anger of Steve Bannon and others on the ultrapopulist wing of his movement, Graham is lobbying for regime change.
He is uniquely placed for that conversation. Graham is one of the best-known Republican Iran hawks and has earned a position where he can disagree with the president and still be invited to the golf course where Trump plays during winter weekends.
He has made similar arguments in public. This week, during a visit to Israel, Graham warned that leaving the Tehran leadership in place risked one of Trump’s pet projects — the Abraham Accords, which have rebuilt relations between Israel and a string of Arab nations.
“If after all this, [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei is still standing, then I think the Abraham Accords will eventually fall, and Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis will get stronger,” he said.
In …
Golf diplomacy: Lindsey Graham tells Trump he has ‘generational opportunity’ to take on Iran
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
Welcome to Washington Secrets, your guide to who is taking a beating and who is getting beaten. Today we take you to the fairways of West Palm Beach and Lindsey Graham’s latest pitch for tougher action on Iran, and to the Capitol Hill Club where Republicans were plotting last night how to navigate the midterm electionss without losing the Senate …
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s message to President Donald Trump was clear: The president has a “generational opportunity” to reshape the Middle East by toppling Iran’s leaders.
The South Carolina senator used one of his regular rounds of golf earlier this month to make one of his regular arguments, Secrets can reveal, that it was time to take on the mullahs.
But this time it came against a ticking clock and a buildup of American forces in the Middle East.
And he tweaked his message to lean into one of the president’s current obsessions — his legacy.
They played 18 holes at the president’s West Palm Beach club nearly two weeks ago. Less than a week later, Trump announced he was deploying a second aircraft carrier group to the region, expanding his options for strikes on Iran.
A former administration official said Graham’s golf course pitch described a limited amount of time for action.
“The message is that this is a generational opportunity to transform the Middle East, a transformational opportunity,” he said.
“Iran has never in its 47 years experienced this kind of economic collapse, political collapse, environmental collapse, military collapse, and has no internal legitimacy, with massive infighting.”
While Trump weighs his options, mindful that any intervention will attract the anger of Steve Bannon and others on the ultrapopulist wing of his movement, Graham is lobbying for regime change.
He is uniquely placed for that conversation. Graham is one of the best-known Republican Iran hawks and has earned a position where he can disagree with the president and still be invited to the golf course where Trump plays during winter weekends.
He has made similar arguments in public. This week, during a visit to Israel, Graham warned that leaving the Tehran leadership in place risked one of Trump’s pet projects — the Abraham Accords, which have rebuilt relations between Israel and a string of Arab nations.
“If after all this, [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei is still standing, then I think the Abraham Accords will eventually fall, and Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis will get stronger,” he said.
In …
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