A Trumpy senator said he’s all about the self-determination of the Iraqi people... as the U.S. wages war on Iran.
After President Donald Trump and Israel launched strikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, MAGA Senator Markwayne Mullin appeared on Fox Business to echo the president’s rhetoric about giving the people of Iran the power to choose their new leader. Unfortunately, he didn’t quite manage it.
“It’s up to the Iraqi people or, I’m sorry, the Iranian people to choose their next go—their next leader,” the senator from Oklahoma, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, fumbled on Monday.
“It’s up to them to rise up and kick this regime out of place,” Mullin continued. “If they do not, then they will be with a different leader, but the same regime.”
The 48-year-old said that he hoped Iranians “choose to get a different leader that we can have a relationship with, which we would love to. Prior to 1979, we had a good relationship with Iran.”
Trump has been noticeably vague about what the long-term strategy is for the conflict, which has already claimed the lives of at least 550 Iranians. But Mullin appeared to have a more detailed understanding.
“But if [the Iranian people] choose to pick up a leader, we will surround that leader, not necessarily with boots on the ground, but with assets to make sure that that leader can be protected, rise up, and then the Iranian people will have the opportunity to choose their next leadership,” he said.
Trump struck a similar, if less specific, tone early Saturday when he announced the attacks and said that he would be sending U.S. forces with the hope of ensuring regime change.
As he wrapped up the eight-minute speech, delivered from his home at Mar-a-Lago, he said, “Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand… When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Resentment toward the Islamic Republic exists among many Iranians, but it is not universal. In January, protests over economic hardships resulted in security forces turning their weapons on their own population.
At the time, Khamenei acknowledged that “several” thousand citizens were killed in the unrest, but human rights groups think that the number could be much higher.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency said that as of Jan. 29, it had confirmed 6,479 deaths while it was still investigating another 17,000 cases.
However, many in Iran do support the regime, with images showing crowds in support of the government. Pro-Iran protests have also broken out in Baghdad, Iraq, and Karachi, Pakistan. Unrest outside the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan left at least 22 people dead, as furor spilled over following the killing of Khamenei.
Mullin, meanwhile, has been wobbly on his stance on regime change since tensions with Iran reached fever-pitch.
“Even though we’re not into regime change, we’re not—this isn’t the Arab Spring, like it happened underneath Secretary [Hillary] Clinton," he said in January on The Source with Kaitlan Collins. “And if that leadership is going to kill their own people, the president said we’ll come to your rescue.”
A little over a month later—again on CNN—he said that, “If it takes us removing the [Iranian Supreme Leader] Ayatollah from keeping the nuclear program from moving forward, then that‘s not off the table, but we would prefer diplomacy.”
