War between Israel and Iranian proxy forces is imminent, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators warned Tuesday after a trip to the Middle East last week.
“Any time you leave a meeting where the request is ammunition, ammunition, ammunition, that’s probably not good,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said of a meeting with Israeli officials. Graham is the Senate’s lead appropriator for the U.S. State Department and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Hezbollah — the powerful pro-Iranian Lebanese party — has built a plant in Lebanon to convert rockets into precision-guided munitions, and it has integrated its fighters into civilian infrastructure like apartments, schools and hospitals, Graham asserted.
“When they tell you we want help to deal with the blowback that might come from attacks on civilian targets where Hezbollah has integrated military capability, that was pretty striking,” Graham said of talks with Israeli officials.
Fresh from leading a bipartisan congressional delegation last week to Israel, Jordan, Greece and the U.K., Graham told reporters: “This was the most unnerving trip I’ve had in a while.”
The conflict is escalating, said Sen. Chris Coons, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and a senior appropriator. Coons, D-Del., pointed to the Iranian drone shot down in Israel and the Israeli fighter downed by Syrian air defenses during a retaliatory offensive in Syria.
“When they tell you we want help to deal with the blowback that might come from attacks on civilian targets where Hezbollah has integrated military capability, that was pretty striking,” Graham said of talks with Israeli officials.
Fresh from leading a bipartisan congressional delegation last week to Israel, Jordan, Greece and the U.K., Graham told reporters: “This was the most unnerving trip I’ve had in a while.”
The conflict is escalating, said Sen. Chris Coons, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and a senior appropriator. Coons, D-Del., pointed to the Iranian drone shot down in Israel and the Israeli fighter downed by Syrian air defenses during a retaliatory offensive in Syria.
Graham and Coons saw a link between increased pressure on Israel and the lack of a strategy to push back against Russia and Iran from the Trump administration and America’s European allies.