Sen. Steve Daines says regime change is the best long-term plan in Iran

FIRST ON FOX: A Senate Republican believes that regime change is the best long-term “solution” in Iran as a fragile ceasefire between the Islamic Republic and Israel continues to hold.

The truce between Israel and Iran came late last month, and so far has put a hold on the fighting that took place over the course of 12 days in the region, which began when the Jewish State struck Iranian targets on June 13. It culminated in a U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear sites with bunker-busters in an operation greenlit by President Donald Trump.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and previously held a position as chair of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, told Fox News Digital that he is cautiously optimistic that the truce will hold, but warned that Iran’s deep-seated aggression towards Israel could be the ceasefire’s undoing — unless a new regime took over.

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“I’m of the opinion that the longer-term solution in Iran is going to be regime change,” Daines said. “Because until you have a regime that recognizes the legitimacy of the Jewish state of Israel and their right to exist, and believes that Israel should not be destroyed, I don’t think we’re going to bring the peace that we need, that we all aspire to see between Iran, Israel and, frankly, in the Middle East.”

Daines’ sentiment comes ahead of an expected meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday at the White House. 

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There is a bipartisan push between Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., to further arm Israel with B-2 bombers and bunker-busting bombs, but most lawmakers, including Daines, don’t believe that the U.S. should get involved in toppling the current regime and installing a new one.

The U.S. was involved in regime change in the country in the 1950s, when then-Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was removed and the door was opened for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to take control of Iran. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution took place, which removed Pahlavi from power and saw the birth of the current regime.

Daines argued that any change must come from within, because “otherwise, it’s just a matter of time before that regime would lose its legitimacy.”

“Regime change is risky because you may end up with something worse than what you have,” Daines said. “Now in this case, the bar is set awfully low in Iran, but you could get an equivalent type of philosophy, or maybe something a little better.”

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“I think we need to have a regime that recognizes that Iran and their long-term prosperity will be tied to growing closer to the West and being an ally of the West and not being an ally of China, Russia, North Korea,” he continued.

“A ceasefire is not the end. It’s a means. A ceasefire just says, ‘OK, we’re still at war, but we’re not going to shoot for a while.’ That’s what a ceasefire is,” Daines said. “A lasting peace will be when the Iranian leadership recognizes the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.”

“Until that happens, I think Iran will remain a threat, particularly if the regime, whether it’s the current regime or a regime that changed that has a similar ideology as the current regime, that Israel must be destroyed,” he continued. “That is not a peaceful outcome. That’s just delaying what could be a future development of nuclear capabilities and some kind of a first strike by Iran, either against Israel or against the United States.”