Saying the U.S. would work toward regime change and join a coalition to bomb its nuclear installations, Gov. Chris Christie ratcheted up his threats against Iran, websites in the US reported.
Christie, who opposed the agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program for more than a decade in exchange for relaxing economic sanctions, said that the next U.S. president “better be prepared to” attack its nuclear facilities.
“I will be,” Christie said on the Fox News Channel program “Hannity.”
A candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Christie said that if he was elected, he would deliver two messages to Iran on his first day in office. The first, he said, was the country “will never have a nuclear weapon, and if that means taking military action to stop it, we will.”
The second? “The United States’ official policy is for regime change in Iran,” he said.
“These are murderous thugs,” he said. “You can’t talk to these people.”
Christie in July accused President Obama of lying in order to get the Iran deal through Congress. “If the president likes this deal, then go and sell it, but sell it honestly, don’t lie to the American people,” Christie said at the time.
He also appeared in August with Jewish groups at Rutgers University in New Brunswick to oppose the deal and urge undecided New Jersey lawmakers, most notably U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), to vote no.
“For those who have not yet announced their decision,” he said, “this cannot be about politics and it cannot be about accepting the flawed idea that a bad deal is better than no deal.”