Condoleezza Rice: It Would Be Nice if We Had Afghanistan Bases to Deter Iran Right Now

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that while President Joe Biden’s move to send a carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean is a good move, it was a mistake to give up military facilities in Afghanistan, and that having bases in a country that borders Iran would be useful to help isolate them.

Rice stated, “For starts, let’s not go back to the pretense that we can have an agreement with the Iranians about their nuclear facilities. Let’s not go back to the place where we’re releasing funding to the Iranian mullahs who then just use that funding for Hezbollah and Hamas. That would be a good start. And let’s try again to isolate the Iranians in the way that we had earlier in the Bush administration and in the Trump administration. The idea that you can deal with the Iranians, you might find reasonable ways to deal with the Iranians, it seems to me this is just one more example of what we’ve seen over this last few days, that the Iranians are a revisionist power, that they are the most dangerous power in the region. And oh, by the way, Sean, we gave up military facilities in Afghanistan, a country that has a hundreds-[kilometer-long] border with Iran. That was a mistake in its own right. And so, how to deal with Iran, I think it starts with isolating them. I think it starts with what, actually, the Biden administration has done. I think sending the carrier battle groups into the region is a good idea, but this should really erase any notion that the Iranian regime can be dealt with.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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