President Donald Trump's raid on Venezuela to capture President Nicolas Maduro for trial on drug trafficking charges influenced opponents of the Iranian regime to maintain their protests against the odds, several House Republicans told Newsmax recently.
"If you're demonstrating in Iran, you have to be interested in what happened in Venezuela," Rep. David Kustoff, R-Tenn., said. "And not just Iran, but China and Russia must all be paying close attention to Venezuela."
Calling the seizure of Maduro "a master-class extradition," Kustoff predicted "we may be seeing a new day politically and regimewise in Iran, and I'm sure the Iranians appreciated our president making a strong statement regimewise in Venezuela."
Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa.,went even further, suggesting "there could be a next 'domino effect' on dictatorships such as that which we saw in Eastern Europe culminating in the fall of the Soviet Union following years of Ronald Reagan's policy toward the communists."
Just as Reagan's policies "led to the fall of communism," Meuser suggested that "President Trump's policy could lead to the fall of dictatorships, with Iran, Cuba, and Colombia, to start."
The Pennsylvanian also voiced his opinion that "we need to be as proactive as we can, keep sanctions high, and dissuade other countries from getting oil from Iran. [Former President] Biden ended more sanctions, and had he not done so, Iran could have achieved freedom more rapidly."
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., agreed, saying that "when we had the chance to give the support to so-called dissidents in Iran [in 2009, when the Obama administration refused to weigh in behind demonstrators against a blatantly rigged presidential election, the protest] collapsed. Had we done so, we'd have a different Iran."
Of Trump's Venezuela strike, Walberg said that "we showed leadership and we showed where we stood. Now in Iran, we need to let people know we stand with them."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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