Iran's government will continue to move backward if it doesn't engage in productive diplomacy with the United States, Rep. Lee Zeldin said Thursday.
"The United States does not want military conflict with Iran," the New York Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "The president of the United States does not want military conflict with Iran. We would love to see a resolution with regard to these nuclear and non-nuclear activities that Iran is engaged in."
Zeldin added that Iran has been "acting out" because of the pressure the United States is putting on its economy.
"We have to understand domestic policies for Iran," said Zeldin. "They seek to appease hardliners. We criticized the regime. It is not just the senior leadership but they also have people on their right that they seem to be more concerned about, than all of the many millions of Iranian people who actually want a free, stable, democratic peaceful Iran instead."
In addition, countries in the Middle East are concerned enough with Iran's aggression that they are starting to view Israel in a different light, and alliances are shifting, said Zeldin.
After Iran got billions of dollars from the international nuclear deal, "their vision is to build a land bridge across the Middle East...if you want to find our best friends when trying to respond to what Iranian aggression is happening each day you will find it in the countries around Iran greatly concerned with this aggression."
Meanwhile, the United States must make it "absolutely clear" that there is zero tolerance for targeting of the country, its personnel, and its national security interest, said Zeldin.
"As red lines on our end, there should be a military response if we're attacked by Iran...I don't want to see a military option. That's the last possible option."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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