Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., a Marine and Navy veteran who deployed to the Persian Gulf and is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, dismissed the new U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding as a hollow arrangement that hands Tehran time to rebuild, telling Newsmax on Thursday that he favors unconditional surrender and a methodical campaign to dismantle the regime's energy backbone.

"Not a big fan," McCormick said on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren," casting the Islamic Republic as an enemy that openly seeks America's destruction.

"They see us as the great Satan. They want to destroy us. They've told us this openly. They planned for that openly. They know they can lie to us. And, as a matter of fact, we're infidels. They're supposed to lie to us."

The framework, signed by President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 17, paused fighting for 60 days, called for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and deferred core nuclear questions to follow-on talks.

McCormick said Iran has signaled it will use the pause to reconstitute the ballistic missile program, which U.S. and Israeli strikes degraded during Operation Epic Fury.

"They've openly said since the war, since even the MOU, now they're going to repursue their ballistic missile systems, that they're going to rebuild everything we destroyed, which was their military," he said.

"This is not a good-faith agreement by any sort."

U.S. intelligence assessments reported by The Wall Street Journal indicate Tehran is digging out buried launchers and aims to rebuild missile capabilities during the ceasefire.

He took particular aim at routing verification back through the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"The IAEA was created in 1957, and it was supposed to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Well, that didn't work out. They failed their inspections for nuclear weapons in Iran, Iraq, and they failed in Iran. Iran tricked them," McCormick said.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said this week that inspections of damaged Iranian sites will take place under the memorandum, but Tehran insists that no new access has been granted and disputes U.S. claims about timing and scope.

McCormick compared the moment to Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure rhymes," McCormick said. He said Saddam Hussein "didn't have nuclear arms" but pretended otherwise to deter Iran, and was warned repeatedly before the U.S. lost patience.

"Imagine this regime, which is far more powerful, far more alarmingly armed. We obviously can't let them have nuclear arms."

Asked what he would do instead, McCormick called for regime change through a punishing campaign against civilian infrastructure, drawing an analogy to the bombing of Japan.

"This is going to sound harsh, but I believe in unconditional surrender, which means regime change. That's not achieved easily. But in order to save a million lives in Japan, we dropped bombs that killed 100,000 civilians in one night," he said.

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