There’s a reason U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (RINO-S.C.) refuses to show up for public meetings unless they are attended by his hand-picked supporters: He knows only a pre-selected group of “sheeple” will sit in silence and swallow his increasingly shameless fear-mongering.

At an invitation-only breakfast for establishment Republican types in Mount Pleasant, S.C. this week, Graham said that if America doesn’t take military action against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon by the end of 2014.

“I believe that if we get Syria wrong, within six months – and you can quote me on this – there will be a war between Iran and Israel over their nuclear program,” Graham said, according to U.S. News and World Report.

But the fear-mongering didn’t stop there. Graham says this conflict will come home to – of all places – Charleston, S.C.

“It won’t come to America on top of a missile, it’ll come in the belly of a ship in the Charleston or New York harbor,” he said.

Wait … what?

We’ve heard some over-the-top excuses in support of American military intervention in the Syrian civil war, but this one takes the cake.

As we’ve stated repeatedly, our government had no business getting involved in Syria in the first place and has no business escalating that involvement through direct military intervention. The American people don’t want this war. Our allies don’t want this war. Our generals don’t want this war.

More to the point, there is no compelling national interest served by getting involved.

“The national defense is a core function of government outlined in our constitution,” we wrote recently. “But in no universe is intervening in this conflict – on the side of terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, no less – acting in defense of those interests. Intervening would, however, encroach on the sovereignty of another nation, incite anti-American fervor in the Middle East and fundamentally make our people less safe.”