Gingrich: Remove Iranian regime

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Newt Gingrich at the AIPAC policy conference called for ousting the regime in Iran and bombing its missile sites.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a likely presidential candidate in 2012, in his address faulted the last Bush administration and the current Obama administration for engaging with Iran as long as it is led by theocrats who threaten Israel.

"We need to recognize that there are some regimes we will never be able to cut a deal with because they are in fact evil," he said Sunday, the opening day of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, which drew nearly 7,000 delegates.

Gingrich likened negotiations with the current Iranian regime to negotiating with Adolf Hitler, and called for "enforcing the disruption of gasoline supplies until the Iranian economy broke, the ayatollahs were ousted and a new regime was in place without a single shot fired." That earned thunderous applause.

The Georgia Republican also called for a military strike to destroy missiles in Iran and North Korea.

"I favor taking out Iranian and North Korean missiles on their sites," he said.

The Obama administration is intensifying outreach to Iran as well as sanctions in trying to get the Islamic Republic to end its suspected nuclear weapons program. Part of its strategy is to persuade the Iranian regime that the West does not seek its ouster.

Gingrich also said, to applause, that the U.S. must recognized that "the leading funder of Sunni extremism on the planet is Saudi Arabia, and that rather than bow to the king, we need a national energy policy to liberate the United States." The "bow to the king" language was a reference to Obama’s bow to Saudi King Abdullah at the G-20 summit a few weeks ago.