CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—Sen. Lindsey Graham says the deal the White House cut with the Iranian regime amounts to America cutting a check in the name of radical Islamic terrorism.

“The most logical consequence of this deal is that the most radical regime in the region, the Iranian ayatollah and his henchmen, are going to get $100 billion over the next decade,” Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, tells The Daily Signal. “They’re going to put it in their war machine to further destabilize the Mideast. You might as well have written the check to Assad, Hamas and Hezbollah.”

While Graham has taken hits from conservatives on topics like immigration, he has been one of the strongest voices to speak out against radical Islam and this administration’s response to it.

Graham believes that President Obama laid out a false choice to the American people when it came to making this deal. “It’s not between a bad deal and a war. That only comes from a weak-minded president. The choice was between a deal we could live with and a nightmare.”