Israel is capable of taking out Iran's nuclear facilities through airstrikes if necessary, Sen. Tom Cotton told CNN.
On
"The Situation Room" on Wednesday, host Wolf Blitzer asked Cotton whether Israel's air force has the ability to destroy Iran's underground facility in Fordo.
Cotton replied, "I will simply quote something that a former Israeli Defense Forces general said to me when I asked him this question many months ago: It can be done."
An Israeli airstrike took out a suspected military nuclear facility in Syria in 2007.
Iran likely takes an Israeli threat far more seriously than a military threat from the United States, Cotton said, pointing to the unfulfilled vow by President Barack Obama in 2012 to use military force against Syria if it used chemical weapons in its civil war.
"The president drew a red line in Syria, then erased it," Cotton said. "So no, I don't think Iran or most other countries in the region believe the United States is willing to take military action to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon."
The White House also is undermining Israel with the icy relationship it has shown to newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Cotton said.
The U.S.-Israeli alliance is a core part of America's strategic position in the Middle East, Cotton said, and the administration's effort to undermine Netanyahu is "further weakening our negotiating position."
Like other critics of the White House's negotiations, Cotton said allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons would only set off an arms race in an unstable region.
"That means nuclear material would fall in the hands of Sunni terrorist groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaida," he said. "We would be ringing the most volatile region in the world with nuclear trip wires if we let Iran get nuclear weapons capabilities."