NI: If Erdogan is considered an enemy of the West, as you stated, what sort of measures might be taken against him? After all, Turkey is a NATO ally, so breaking ties with them would be very difficult.

DR: That’s the first thing you do: Kick them out of NATO. NATO is supposed to have democratic governance and Turkey does not. Turkey has tens and thousands of people in prison, who were running their newspapers and were political party people, so this is not a democratic country anymore. It should immediately be removed from NATO. If at that point things don’t change in Turkey, we should do our best then to start supporting the Kurds and the other folks in Turkey that would prefer not be under the thumb of Ankara.

NI: You were recently quoted as stating at a hearing that ISIS’s attack on Tehran may have been a “good thing,” which caused a lot of attention. Could you elaborate on that remark?

DR: Actually, the remark was intended, but I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence, that it wasn’t a good thing. We never say that anyone attacking innocent civilians is doing a good thing. That’s obviously not a good thing, no matter who it is. But, we have a situation, which is all I knew at that moment, where the Mausoleum of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the government parliament were attacked by radical Sunnis. Now, that is the Shia center of power, and I might add that no one in Iran can be elected unless they are approved by these radical Islamic mullahs that control that country with an iron fist. So, the parliament building is a symbol of their power and the mausoleum is the equivalent of Lenin’s tomb in Moscow. I certainly think that’s something that the people there should think about eliminating someday. So, that statement, which was cut off, if I had thirty more seconds no one would have been upset with it, thinking that I support terrorist attacks. But, I do prefer conflict between terrorist organizations, rather than have those terrorist organizations targeting others.

NI: Are you concerned that if Iran perceives that the United States is encouraging attacks against it, then that may cause blowback against the United States itself and our interests in the region more broadly?

DR: I think we should be aggressively supporting those people in the Middle East who oppose radical Islamic regimes, whether it be Erdogan, the mullahs in Iran or perhaps even countries like Saudi Arabia. We just saw a change in leadership there. If the new man starts going in the wrong direction, and the Saudis have already been in the wrong direction for quite a long time, then we should not be afraid to support people who oppose that regime, meaning not go in ourselves, but at least let them know that we are not going to be bolstering the radical Islamic dictatorship when there is a positive alternative there. If he starts improving things, then this won’t apply to Saudi Arabia. I don’t care if the mullahs get mad at us and try to retaliate. I think the mullahs are doing everything they can to hurt us already—for years—and I think that’s true with ISIS as well. The meaning of my remark the other day was that it’s good to have people who hate us and are radical Islamists fighting each other rather than spending their time and resources attacking the people of the United States or any other people who are not radical Islamists.

NI: You mentioned Saudi Arabia as a state that is of potential concern for the United States. How widespread among your colleagues is your apprehension about Saudi Arabia? If it is widespread, how might it manifest itself in response to President Trump’s moves to grow closer with Saudi Arabia?

DR: I think there is a lot of apprehension about trying to get closer to Saudi Arabia. Most people know that Saudis are financing and have financed the creation of a radical Islamic movement in these last few decades. They’ve been financing the madrassa schools that are churning out the radical Muslims. They have been financing Pakistan and its proradical position. They’ve financed the 9/11 attack on the United States for God’s sakes! So, there has been a lot of apprehension about that. I think what people right now are hoping that Donald Trump, with all of his brashness and boisterous way of handling himself, can actually break through to these people and get an actual change, whereas someone who is more diplomatic, less aggressive and more accommodating couldn’t have an impact. But people now think with Trump being different than what we’ve had in dealing with the Saudis, he might break through. When I saw him at the great meeting hall in Riyadh, with all these leaders from around the region as well as all the Saudi leaders, telling them that “if you want to be friends of the United States, you gotta drive the terrorists out of your mosques.” I don’t know any other president who has said anything like that. He’s really direct, and that might be the way to do it. It worked when we did it with Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan said to tear down the wall, and all his senior staffers were going nuts and tried everything they could to stop him from saying it. Well, he said it anyway, and it had a major impact on the world and on history. Maybe having a brash guy like we’ve got now as president may break down some walls too. When he said, “Drive them out of your mosques. Drive them out of your country,” those words may well go down in history.

Image: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) speaks during a House Foreign Affairs Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats Subcommittee hearing about the attack on demonstrators by members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's security detail on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S. May 25, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein.