Arkansas Rep. Tom Cotton said Wednesday that Congress should seriously consider supplying Israel with surplus B-52 bombers and "bunker buster" bombs for a possible strike against Iranian nuclear sites, the
Washington Free Beacon reports.
Cotton – a Republican who next month will become the Razorback State's junior senator in Washington – urged that Congress should "reimpose" sanctions on Iran that were lifted by President Barack Obama in an effort to jumpstart nuclear talks.
"In my opinion, the negotiations were a grievous mistake from the beginning, and they quickly became a sham; now they're a farce," Cotton said.
He added that it is time for lawmakers to consider providing Israel with military hardware needed for strikes targeting the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities.
Cotton said this would include 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs capable of penetrating fortified, underground Iranian nuclear research sites.
This type of move could "send the right signal to our allies in the region and to the regime in Iran," Cotton said attending a forum sponsored by the
Foreign Policy Initiative.
Rep. Mike Pompeo, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, argued that carrying out effective strikes against Iranian nuclear sites could set Iran's nuclear program back between two and three years.
"The engineers, the technology, the knowledge, the blueprints will still exist," the Kansas Republican said at the Foreign Policy Initiative event.The danger "is eliminated when the regime changes."
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