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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz called on the Trump administration Sunday to provide weapons directly to Iranian protesters and Kurdish groups to facilitate regime change in Iran.
“What I’ve been urging is for President Donald Trump ... to arm the protesters, the people of Iran,” Cruz told NBC News.
He argued that it is “not fair” to expect civilians to confront armed soldiers with only rocks and said the Iranian people, rather than “American boots on the ground,” should be the ones to remove the current government.
Cruz’s appeal follows claims by Trump that previous attempts to covertly arm demonstrators had failed.
Trump previously said Washington had sent “a lot” of firearms through Kurdish intermediaries, but that he believed those groups “kept them” for their own use.
He expressed disappointment in the groups, saying the supplies never reached their intended recipients.
The decision to strike Iran alongside Israel is said to have been partly inspired by the desire to topple the current system in the Islamic Republic.
In his video address announcing attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, Trump told Iranians that “the hour of your freedom is at hand.”
“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” Trump said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said at the time that “our joint operation will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands.”
Meanwhile, Trump late Sunday shared an AI-generated video showing the imagined destruction of Iran’s Kharg Island, saying the strategic oil hub was “being blown to smithereens.”
“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Earlier Sunday, U.S. forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island, an entirely separate island, marking the first U.S. strikes on Iranian territory since late July, a U.S. official told Axios.
The operation targeted systems that were allegedly being prepared to launch rockets carrying sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said several fighters and civilians were killed or injured in the strike and vowed to respond.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that preliminary information indicated the attack was carried out by drones.
Kharg Island, a vital center for Iran’s oil industry and exports, has been inactive since July 31, according to ship-tracking firm Kpler and consultancy Energy Aspects.
Satellite imagery showed that all three loading berths at Kharg had remained vacant for an extended period, according to maritime intelligence company Windward.
The island normally handles nearly 90% of Iran’s crude exports because of its deep-water access for large oil tankers.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have remained high since the war began with strikes on Iran in late February.
Although a framework agreement was reached in June through Pakistani and Qatari mediation, the United States reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports in mid-July after an interim agreement, mediated by Pakistan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, collapsed.
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