WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz mused that the collapse of the brutal regimes in Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela during the next six months is “entirely” within the realm of possibility.
The Republican, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, contended to Sean Hannity on Fox News Wednesday that the US is living through a period of tremendous geopolitical opportunities, but cautioned that there’s no guarantee those regimes will fall.
“We are at an extraordinary moment in history. It is entirely possible, Sean, that in the next six months, we will see the regimes fall in Iran, in Venezuela, and in Cuba, and we could also see governments replace them that want to be friends with the United States of America,” Cruz said on “Hannity.”
President Trump has dramatically ramped up pressure on all three US adversaries over recent weeks.
Since last year, the US has maintained an oil quarantine around Venezuela. Trump also authorized the Jan. 3 Operation Absolute Resolve raid to capture strongman Nicolas Maduro.
Those efforts enabled the US to cut off Cuba’s key source of oil, putting a big squeeze on Havana.
More recently, Trump has massed US military assets, including two aircraft carriers, near Iran as a show of force while allowing negotiations with the regime to continue playing out.
The pressure campaign comes on the heels of the theocratic regime massacring thousands of people in what has been described as one of the largest protest activities since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
“Now, let me be clear, I’m not being Pollyannish about this; there are a thousand things that can go wrong,” Cruz added.
“But if that happens, this would be the most consequential geopolitical shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall, since America won the Cold War without firing a shot.”
Trump claimed on Thursday that a decision about whether to strike Iran will come “over the next, probably 10 days.”
“We may have to take it a step further, or we may not. Maybe we’re going to make a deal,” Trump said during his Gaza-centered Board of Peace summit in DC.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly taunted Trump repeatedly this week and threatened to sink US warships in the region.
“The Americans constantly say that they’ve sent a warship toward Iran,” Khamenei’s team wrote on his English X account. “Of course, a warship is a dangerous piece of military hardware.”
“However, more dangerous than that warship is the weapon that can send that warship to the bottom of the sea.”
Iran has also carried out naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint where about a fifth of the world’s oil flows through annually.
