President Donald Trump's maximum pressure campaign to stop Iran's sponsorship of terrorism, as well as preventing the nation from having nuclear weapons, means a return to the policies that worked in the Middle East to achieve peace, national security adviser Mike Waltz said during a CPAC interview Friday.
But first, he told the audience, in a talk shown on Newsmax, that he wanted to "thank God" that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not listen to the Biden administration on its demands about the war.
"As a result of his leadership and Israel's leadership, Hezbollah and Iran are now decimated," said Waltz. "The pager, beeper, and walkie-talkie operation is going to go down in history. As a Green Beret, I appreciate a good covert operation. That was one of the greatest ones in history."
And now, Hezbollah is "largely decapitated," leaving a "real opening in Lebanon that you haven't had in a generation," said Waltz, adding that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is now gone.
"You have the axis of terror from Iran all the way to threaten our partners — Israel — essentially disrupted, and we need to keep our foot on their neck in that regard," he said. "And then from a maximum pressure campaign, the president just signed that executive order, returning to maximum pressure to start keeping a foot on the neck of the Iranian economy."
The key to it all, said Waltz, is ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.
"If Iran has a nuke, there is a real question of whether they're a rational actor and they can take out Israel," he said. "They can launch against the world. They will have that nuclear umbrella to launch all of these other attacks. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. But under President Trump's leadership, we will ensure that does not happen."
Waltz also discussed the news that Hamas has returned the bodies of two small children who were held hostage but returned the wrong woman's body to Israel.
"My message and President Trump's message to those families is 'We are with you,'" said Waltz. "He is horrified by these scenes coming out. And if anyone thinks that Hamas is some type of quasi-benevolent [group] … What more convincing do you need? Hamas is one of the worst kinds of terrorist groups out there. They are no different than ISIS. They are no different than al-Qaida. And they absolutely must be destroyed."
The Biden administration, he added, was "obsessed with a ceasefire," and only "concession after concession" was made that put more pressure on Israel than it did Hamas.
"Only when President Trump came in and said, 'Look, there will be all hell to pay,' the credible threat that only he can deliver," action started happening toward the release of hostages.
"Just what, six months ago, eight months ago, you had college campuses, you had students, you had faculty, you had protesters celebrating Hamas, talking about from the river to the sea, having the worst kind of antisemitism," said Waltz. "And now, we've seen and we just saw yesterday, the despicable people that they are and why they can never be allowed to run Gaza and why we can never allow another Oct. 7."
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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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