Sen. Graham: “Syria Is a Cancer”

Sen. Lindsey Graham said the Middle East is “on fire.”

Graham spoke on foreign policy during an appearance at the Easley Rotary Club last week.

“I've never been more worried about our national security as I am right now,” he said. “The Arab Spring is turning sour.”

“Lebanon is being effected by Syria,” Graham said. “Hezbolla is a Shiite militant group that is trying to destroy Lebanese democracy. They're now sending soldiers into Syria to help Assad. Turkey is being overrun by refugees. The Kurds who live in Syria also live in Turkey and Iraq and there is a movement among the Kurds in Syria to try to create an independent Kurdish state that would create a war with Turkey.”

Al-Qaeda operatives are finding a safe haven in Syria, he said.

He supports arming the Syrian rebels.

“We should have done it along time ago,” Graham said. “Some of the them are radical Islamists. Every day that goes by, makes it harder to find out who is fighting in Syria. My biggest fear is that the chemical weapons that have Syria has will get in the wrong hands. If we don't get this right, and we don't get Assad out soon, you're going to have a nightmare. You're going to have an open war between Sunnis and Shias in Syria that could affect the entire region.”

There's another reason to remove Assad from power, Graham said.

“That's Iran's only friend,” he said. “If we were serious about taking Assad on, maybe they would change their nuclear ambitions. How can you convince the Iranians you're serious about taking them on when you won't take on Assad?

Graham has been highly critical of the Obama administration's response to the attack of the US embassy in Benghazi, which left four Americans dead.

“Benghazi is important because it's a national security failure that needs to be understood and corrected,” he said. “It's not because he's a Democrat and I'm a Republican. It's because it really was system failure and we need to learn from it. We have not gotten the information, and we're going to get it if I have to die trying.”

President George W. Bush and his administration “got Iraq wrong early on,” Graham said.

“The same mistakes we made in Iraq, we made in Libya – not enough security.” he said.“You can't outsource security to a non-existent government.”

Though Chuck Hagel was confirmed as Secretary of Defense last week, Graham told Rotarians he would not support Hagel's confirmation and he didn't.

“Chuck Hagel's a fine man, but there's nobody I know of who has a more antagonistic voting record toward Israel, and there's nobody I know of in the Senate in recent times has had such a soft record when it comes to Iran,” Graham said. “I'm not going to vote for a Secretary of Defense that views Israel as the problem.”

Graham said America needs to stand by Israel.

“Is Israel without fault? No,” he said. “But the King of Jordan could be the first victim of an out-of-control Syria. The refugees flowing into Jordan are coming in by the thousands, putting pressure on the King of Jordan. The King of Jordan is short for this world, I think, if something doesn't change. And if he goes, you're going to get a more radical regime. He's being pushed hard by the Muslim Brotherhood. My biggest fear is the destabilization of the Jordanian economy by these refugees from Syria will give an opening to the Muslim Brotherhood like they had in Egypt.”

“Now is the not time to beat on our friends in Israel, now's the time to support them,” Graham continued.

The Iranians are “marching toward a nuclear weapon,” which threatens Israel, Graham said.

“What the president chooses to do in the next 60 to 90 days about the Mid-East could determine the security of our nation and the world for a long time to come. If we don't stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, every Sunni Arab state that can afford it will get one – the Saudis, Egyptians. The next thing we know, we'll have a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”

Graham said he was glad President Obama will traveling to Israel soon.

“He needs to go there,” Graham said. “He needs to try to restart the peace process. But beyond anything else, he needs to go to Israel and tell the Israeli people, 'We stand with you.' The same people who want to destroy the state of Israel want to destroy us. You can't de-link our fates.”

He said he hopes the Palestinian people will have “their own state, living in peace with Israel.”

“But they've got to decide who they are,” Graham said. “Are they Hamas, a terrorist organization, or the Palestinian authority who seem to be willing to work with Israel? They've got an internal dispute they must resolve. But until that dispute gets resolved, we need to firmly and without equivocation send a message to our enemies and our friends: we stand with Israel.”

Radical Islam is on the move and on the march, he said.

“Our friends are worried and our enemies are emboldened,” Graham said. “Now is the time for all of us in Congress to show a sense of maturity we have not displayed before, to put the nation ahead of party.”