Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said during an interview over the weekend that Israel needed to finish off Hezbollah for good, even if it means invading southern Lebanon.
The senator made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” while discussing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a targeted airstrike late last week.
“I’m not sure that Israel is expanding the war so much as it is trying to end the war. I think it’s important to stress just sort of how huge a blow the last two weeks have been against Hezbollah,” he said. “Israel has absolutely devastated the entire leadership structure of Hezbollah — whether it’s at the attacks that came just late last week, killing not only Hassan Nasrallah and all the other leaders, or some of their other actions, or hitting their weapons depots and manufacturing sites in Syria. Now is not the time for a ceasefire or to de-escalate, as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want.”
“Hezbollah is on its knees,” he continued. “The United States should help Israel drive Hezbollah to the mat and choke it out and finish it off once and for all. That means for the first time in decades, Iran would be exposed on its flanks with no terror proxy capable of devastating Israel or our troops and our friends in the region. That’s what we should do. Not demand that we have a cease fire. De-escalate at a time when Israel is trying to win. We should let Israel win.”
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When asked if he would support Israel invading southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah back to create a buffer zone so Israeli civilians can return to their homes, he said yes.
“If that’s what Israel needs to do to eliminate the remnants of Hezbollah’s leadership and its arsenal, then yes, of course,” he said.
Cotton also addressed the hundreds of attacks that U.S. forces have faced in the region over the last year from Iranian-backed terrorist groups, saying that it was a direct result of the Biden-Harris administration’s weakness.
“There’s been continued attacks on us again — just like we should support Israel in striking back against these terrorists, we should be striking back harder again,” he said. “But that’s not Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s policy. From the very beginning, they’ve appeased and conciliated the ayatollahs. Kamala Harris, for instance, opposed Donald Trump’s strike that killed Iran’s terrorist mastermind in 2020.”
“Over the last four years, they’ve given away tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief,” he continued. “They’ve looked the other way as Iran violates sanctions. They’ve continually put more pressure on Israel than they put on Iran’s terrorist proxy. That’s why Kamala Harris is the Ayatollah’s handpicked candidate, and while the ayatollahs are hacking into Donald Trump’s campaign and trying to kill him.”
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