Congressman Jerry Nadler (Getty)

U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler thinks we should have left Muammar Qaddafi alone. Congressman Nadler explained his view on our military operation in Libya during a speech at the second annual Agudath Israel Legislative Breakfast this morning.

Agudath Israel is one of the country’s most influential organizations of Ultraorthodox Jews. Congressman Nadler told the audience at the Lower Manhattan event that he believes “there is no greater danger in the world today than Iran.” He also told them why he believes ousting Qaddafi makes the Iranian threat much worse:

“NATO, the United States, and England and France just did something, which I think will help make the situation worse. The United States, or more accurately NATO with the United States’ cooperation, overthrew the Qaddafi regime in Libya. What message were we sending? … Qaddafi is a terrible guy who since 2003 gave up his nuclear weapons program brought in the inspectors and agreed to cooperate and did cooperate with the United States and others since about 2003. … We invaded him and overthrew his regime anyway. Message sent: if there’s any Mullah in Tehran thinking maybe the sanctions are too tough, maybe we really shouldn’t get nuclear weapons, maybe, you know, we don’t need them so much. We just said, ‘Yes, you need them.’  … We just sent the message that you should get nuclear weapons if you want assurance that the Western powers will not overthrow your regime. Very bad message to send.”

Congressman Nadler said the U.S. or Israel might need to take military action against Iran if they obtained nuclear weapons. He explained that there would be a steep price to pay for this with the likely consequence of  ”40,000 rockets launched at Israel” by Hezbollah.

“It’s not a pretty situation we’re in,” Congressman Nadler said.

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