Iran's announcement that it has launched a military satellite into orbit is more proof of the United States' need for a Space Force, Rep. Michael Waltz said Wednesday.
"We are not alone up there," the Florida Republican said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "Our entire economy is dependent on what is up in space. The Chinese in particular, but also the Russians and other countries have developed the capacity to take those constellations down and our entire economy and modern way of life depend on it ... a missile that can put a satellite up in space can also carry a nuclear warhead."
Early Wednesday, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it launched a military satellite into orbit, but did not elaborate further about the two-stage satellite launch from Iran’s Central Desert.
Such actions are proof that President Donald Trump was "absolutely right on this all along" with his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
"It's not just about making the [nuclear] bomb," he said. "It's also the missiles and those components, the ability to put it into a warhead, and all of those other pieces that Iran has been advancing forward. That's why keeping the sanctions in place is so critical. That's why being able to have the defenses to take these things out is also critical."
The Iranian regime is taking actions such as the satellite launch because it is continuing its push to dominate the Middle East, even while the country has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and has an economy that is crumbling, said Waltz.
"It has a long history of creating external crises or doing things like this to divert its populace from what's crumbling within," he said. "That's why you are seeing daily protests, even after the Iran deal and the Obama administration spent literally billions into Tehran."
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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