Graham in Iowa: “I’m best prepared to be commander in chief”

WEST DES MOINES - South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham brought a mix of light and dark to Iowa Friday, offering up the homespun humor that won him accolades during a GOP presidential debate while painting a deadly view if America fails to respond to threats posed by radical Islam.

Graham flashed his razor-sharp wit at times during a 45-minute meeting with Iowans Supporting Israel and the Greater Des Moines Jewish Federation Roundtable, but it was his tough views as the most hawkish Republican in the 2016 presidential race that enthralled the audience.

'If I get to be your president and the commander in chief of those who are serving in uniform, we're going on offense and we're going to win a war we can't afford to lose,” said Graham, who also pledged to forge an alliance between the United States and Israel that is 'unbreakable and unshakable.”

The 12-year veteran of the U.S. Senate said he offers Iowa GOP caucusgoers credentials that should appeal to anti-abortion and social conservatives, but he also would ease regulations that burden small businesses, bring problem-solving skills to the White House and 'above all else, I'm best prepared to be commander in chief.”

Graham, who retired from the Air Force after 33 years, lambasted President Barack Obama's foreign policy, calling him a weak president who has created a mess in the Middle East with a bad nuclear weapons deal with Iran and poor decisions in Iraq and Syria that have destabilized the region and empowered Islamic radicals intent on destroying Israel and America.

Graham said he is the only candidate in the 2016 field who has a plan for defeating ISIS and restoring stability in the Middle East region by beefing up U.S. troops in Iraq and building a regional coalition of nations to destroy a base of extremists' operation from which another 9/11 style attack could be launched against America. He also would ramp up military spending to rebuild the U.S. military.

'I can tell you this, radical Islam hates us all equally,” Graham said in framing America's foreign policy challenges as a bipartisan concern. 'In the cross hairs of radical Islamic terrorists, we're all the same. Our fates are the same.”

If elected president, Graham said he would undo the Iranian nuclear deal - which he called a 'marriage from hell” of Islamic extremism and weapons of mass destruction - negotiated by the Obama administration 'before it hardens into concrete” and forge an international coalition to kill the Jihadists before they attack this country.

'If we don't control what's going on in Syria, they're coming here,” he warned. 'We need to partner with people in the region: militarily, politically and economically to prevent another 9/11.”

Graham said Obama has 'made one mistake after the other” using a weak foreign policy that leads from behind and 'If you want change from the current foreign policy, picking his vice president (Joe Biden) or picking his secretary of state (Hillary Clinton) is not going to get it to you.”

Graham said breakout debate performance this week has buoyed his campaign stuck in the lower-echelon of public opinion polls because Americans 'like a fighter.” Now, he said, he has to mount a ground game in early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that can move him up in a crowded GOP field.

'Showing up in Iowa, doing town halls, weddings, bar mitzvahs, you name it, I'm going to show up at it.

This is a place small enough to make a difference. You don't need $100 million to be competitive in Iowa,” he said.

'I need people who are willing to show up on a given night, stand in night for an hour and vote for Lindsey Graham,” he added. 'The good news for Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina for me is they're small enough that I can get known. I've got to work really hard.”