Graham says Iran war will make US "a tonne of money," threatens Saudi Arabia

On Monday, March 9, Graham turned his attention to Saudi Arabia in a post on X. "Americans are dying and the U.S. is spending billions to dislodge the terrorist Iranian regime that threatens the region," he wrote. "Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia seems to be issuing statements and doing things in the background that are marginally helpful, but unwilling to participate in military operations to end the reign of terror coming out of Iran." He then asked: "Should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?"

Graham's post effectively confirmed what a U.S. official had previously told Middle East Eye: Saudi Arabia had refused to allow the United States to use its territory for offensive operations. The American Embassy in Riyadh had been evacuated due to Iranian strikes on the kingdom. Saudi Arabia was itself absorbing Iranian attacks while publicly declining to join the U.S.-Israeli military campaign. Mediaite Arab Center DC

Graham has sought to shape U.S. policy toward Iran for years through a combination of private lobbying and public pressure. The Wall Street Journal reported that his effort to push Trump toward military action against Iran began at a golf outing shortly after Trump's 2024 election victory. Graham coordinated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, retired Gen. Jack Keane, and columnist Marc Thiessen. He made multiple trips to Israel, meeting with officials from the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency. "They'll tell me things our own government won't tell me," he said.

Graham described pressing White House aides repeatedly, earning what he called the nickname "annoying crazy uncle" from some staffers. He said he worked to counter more dovish voices in the administration, including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Truthout New Arab

Graham's Fox News appearance generated immediate backlash. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Graham's comments confirmed what Tehran had been saying all along. "Their design is clear, their enterprise is quite obvious: they aim at partitioning our country to take illegal possession of our oil riches," Baghaei said. "Their objective is to violate our sovereignty, defeat our people, and undermine our humanity."

Critics in the U.S. argued Graham's framing made the war's purpose appear to be resource extraction rather than nuclear nonproliferation or regional security. The International Atomic Energy Agency had stated it had no evidence of a systematic, ongoing Iranian program to produce a nuclear weapon. Graham's comments combined a regime change goal with an explicit economic benefit in a way that had not previously been stated so bluntly by a senior American official. Al Jazeera Arab Center DC

Graham also addressed Spain during the same period. After Spain refused U.S. requests for base access for Iran strikes and disputed the White House's characterization of its position, Graham said on Fox News: "Spain, you have lost your way. I don't want to do business with you anymore. I want our airbases out of Spain." He also offered Saudi Arabia what he described as a permanent mutual defense agreement: "If you are attacked by Iran, we would go to war for you."

Graham has no authority to make binding treaty commitments. Under the U.S. Constitution, mutual defense agreements require Senate ratification as formal treaties, or specific legislative authorization as executive agreements. His offer was a statement of political intent, not a legal commitment. But the offer illustrated the degree to which individual senators were conducting parallel foreign policy diplomacy alongside the executive branch during the war. Mediaite Common Dreams

Graham's record on Middle East military interventions is long. He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which the Senate Intelligence Committee later found was based on flawed intelligence. He backed U.S. intervention in Libya in 2011 and supported expanded U.S. operations in Syria. In each case he argued that military action would produce stability and economic benefit. The Iraq War cost more than $2 trillion and produced neither.

His "tonne of money" framing on Fox News revived a historical debate about whether American military actions in the Middle East are driven by strategic security interests or by access to natural resources. Graham's own statement linking Iran and Venezuela, both oil-rich countries where the Trump administration has pursued regime change simultaneously, gave that critique more specific grounding than it typically has in public debate. Arab Center DC Truthout