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A decorated military man, Mike Waltz has long been an advocate of taking on Tehran and as Trump’s incoming national security advisor looks set to become a formidable adversary of the Islamic Republic.
Waltz has pulled no punches in accusing the Joe Biden administration of emboldening Tehran.
Despite sanctions, the Islamic Republic in the last four years has made record revenues from oil, approached military grade uranium enrichment, supported Russia’s war in Ukraine and backed allied armed groups in a region-wide fight against Israel.
Most recently, Iran has attempted to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump according to US authorities, an alleged plot which Waltz has not been shy to blame on Biden.
“While the Iranians have been trying to assassinate not only dissidents like journalists, like Salman Rushdie who was stabbed in the neck on stage, but they’re trying to kill right now as we speak, president-elect Trump,” he said on Fox News last week.
“President Biden should be standing on the podium right now sending a very clear message to the Ayatollah: if any of this happens, here will be the consequences," he added. "We will rain holy hell down on Tehran if you interfere with our democracy and if you kill a President-elect of the United States. But yet they think they can get away with it because they don’t think there will be any consequences.”
Waltz, who hails from Florida, is a defense veteran who has also worked in the Pentagon as a policy adviser under former defense chiefs Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.
After 24 years of service, he was the first Green Beret elected to the US House and has been chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
In 2020, Waltz was quick to praise the Trump-ordered assassination of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani: “I'm glad President Trump finally stood up to Iran to show them we will not allow the death of more Americans.”
The killing of Soleimani, who had been responsible for the deaths of many US soldiers, made Trump and his aides the targets of alleged assassination plots from Tehran.
Waltz, in addition to supporting Ukraine against Iran-baked Russian aggression and Israel against Iran’s regional militias, will be likely be central to an effort by the incoming administration to further isolate Tehran.
In 2020, he said more must be done to strangle Tehran economically.
“We must continue to enforce sanctions and the economic pressure campaign because it's working — but we can't do it alone. Our European allies need to step up against terrorism to pressure the regime back to the negotiating table. For our country, our military and the world, it's important we don't back down,” he said.
In spite of countries such as Canada joining the US in designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization, the European Union has so far demurred, though it has levied multiple rounds of sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear program, human rights record and arms shipments to Russia.
On X last week, Waltz continued his criticism of Biden: “Why has Iran been trying to kill President Trump? Because they think they can get away with it. The Biden administration’s weakness over the last 4 years has emboldened our adversaries THAT MUCH.”
He has long been a vocal supporter of Iran's archenemy, Israel, calling the Jewish state “the greatest ally we’ve ever known” at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual conference in September.
In a recent Economist article, Waltz chastised the Biden administration for hindering Israel in its war in Gaza against Iran-backed Hamas. Biden had threatened to cut off arms if more aid was not given to the Palestinians in the enclave amid a humanitarian crisis as pressure mounted from Democrats.
"The next administration should, as Mr. Trump argued, 'let Israel finish the job' and 'get it over with fast' against Hamas," Waltz wrote. "They should put a credible military option on the table to make clear to the Iranians that America would stop them building nuclear weapons and reinstate a diplomatic and economic pressure campaign to stop them and to constrain their support for terror proxies."
