December 21, 2018
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says Saudi Arabia’s military “can’t fight out of a paper bag” when confronted with Mideast challenges such as Iran, and Saudis would be “speaking Farsi in about a week” if it weren’t for the US military presence.
In previous remarks about the Middle East, Graham has said that he learned as a teen that all Iranians are liars. But this time, he presented the Islamic Republic’s military as the strongest force in the region.
In an interview on Fox News December 9, Graham said, “Let me put it this way—I want to be very blunt with you. If it weren’t for the United States, they’d be speaking Farsi in about a week in Saudi Arabia. Their military can’t fight out of a paper bag.”
The interview was mainly about the murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. President Trump has defended Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman against charges he ordered the killing. But Graham said that’s not what the CIA told the Senate.
“It’s the most brilliant briefing I’ve ever received in my time in Congress,” Graham said of the CIA presentation. “You had two analysts that walk us through the crown prince’s focus on Mr. Khashoggi for about two years. This operation was very sophisticated.
“The person in charge of executing the operation is MBS’s [the crown prince’s] right-hand man,” Graham continued, using the three-letter acronym to refer to Mohammad bin Salman. “There is no doubt by any senator who received this briefing that MBS was complicit in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi.”
The White House has voiced fears that taking more aggressive action against Saudi Arabia might unnecessarily compromise US strategic interests in countering Iran, as well as arms deals worth more than $100 billion.
“They give us 9 percent of our oil imports. We need them a lot less than they need us,” Graham countered. ”I don’t buy this idea you’ve got to hook up to a murderous regime, a thug like MBS, to protect America from Iran. Quite the opposite. I think by hooking up with him, we hurt our ability to govern the region.”
“It’s not just this dissident he’s going after,” Graham said. “He’s going after others, people have been captured in other countries and brought back to Saudi Arabia because they’ve been critics in these countries. He put the Lebanese prime minister under house arrest in the most bizarre episode I’ve seen in 20 years and it goes on and on and on.”