Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) argued on Thursday that, without regime change in Iran, the U.S. will likely need to continue to conduct periodic military operations against Iran’s nuclear program to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“One of two things is going to happen: We are forever going to have to continue to make sure they don’t have a nuclear weapon, or they’re going to have a regime change,” Scott said during an event at the Hudson Institute. “One or the other. If there’s not a regime change, then maybe we don’t have to do this every day, but we’re going to have to do this every so often.”

He also argued that past U.S. administrations have been “stupid” by not recognizing that the Iranian regime has been engaging in an ongoing war against the United States since the rise of the Islamic Republic in 1979. President Donald Trump, he continued, is trying to end that 47-year war.

Scott described Trump as reluctant to go to war with Iran, but said the president views the conflict as necessary.

“If you’re the president of the United States, you have a responsibility to protect Americans. That’s your job. So whether he likes it or not — and he doesn’t like war, he ran on getting out of forever wars, he doesn’t want to put American troops in harm’s way … he wants to sit down and negotiate everything,” Scott said.

But, he continued, Trump also knows that Iran would use a nuclear weapon if it had one and that appeasement was not a viable strategy.

“He did the hard thing,” Scott said. “He knew he was going to get criticized, but he decided freedom was and safety to Americans is important enough that he was going to go defend us.”