Washington — Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Sunday that he believes U.S. efforts to negotiate a diplomatic resolution with Iran are likely to fall short, while emphasizing that he still prefers giving diplomacy a chance rather than abandoning it outright.
“Let’s try a diplomatic solution. I think it’s going to fail. What happens next?” Graham said during an appearance on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Vice President JD Vance and other American negotiators are meeting with Iranian officials in Switzerland on Sunday, beginning a 60-day negotiating window after the two nations signed a memorandum of understanding last week. Tensions are already threatening the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire, however, as fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah continues. On Saturday, Iran said it would again close the Strait of Hormuz after accusing the U.S. and Israel of breaching the agreement.
Graham, who said he met with the president for four and a half hours on Friday, said that if negotiations collapse, he expects “President Trump is going to take the Strait of Hormuz over by force.”
“The United States will control the Strait of Hormuz, we’ll charge a fee for all those who go through to pay for the operation, and we’re going to expand the Abraham Accords in calendar year 2026,” Graham said.
Graham went further, warning that “if Iran contests control of the Strait of Hormuz by the United States, we will obliterate them.”
“So, to all the people listening, if this diplomatic effort fails, President Trump is going to take the Strait of Hormuz. We’re going to run it,” Graham said. “We’re going to try to get Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, end the Arab-Israeli conflict in 2026. And if Iran continues to attack Israel and Lebanon, the new policy will be, we’ll hit Iran.”
Earlier this month, Graham — who has long held hawkish views on Iran — came out strongly against the initial contours of the deal. He took particular issue with $300 billion in slated reconstruction funds for Iran, which he wrote on X would be “akin to a Marshall Plan for Germany with the Nazis still in charge.” In recent days, following the release of the 14-point memorandum of understanding with Iran, Graham’s position appeared to change.
On Sunday, Graham said that “before, I thought the money was coming from the West.” He now believes the funding is more likely to come from Gulf states allied with the U.S., a shift he described as encouraging because “it would mean that the Sunni Arabs believe that Iran has changed to the point they want to be a business partner.”
While the South Carolina Republican called the memorandum of understanding “problematic,” he argued “the money Iran gets is not going to change the future of Iran.”
“It’s not enough to reconstruct the country,” Graham said.
