If the administration makes a bad nuclear deal with Iran, Congress should reject it, Josh Block, CEO and President of The Israel Project, wrote in an op-ed for The Miami Herald Tuesday. The Israel Project publishes The Tower.
After noting that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected a number of conditions that would make a deal effective—conditions that President Barack Obama has said would need to be part of an acceptable deal, Block observed that instead of walking out, “the administration seems prepared to cede ground to Iranian intransigence.”
Secretary of State John Kerry even indicated that Iran might not have to disclose its past atomic research. The International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, has said this information is critical to detecting and understanding future violations. America’s red lines on centrifuges, the Iranian military facility at Fordo and Iran’s nuclear stockpiles, have been shoved aside as well.
The AP reports that the administration is now seeking to repeal both nuclear and non-nuclear sanctions. All this as Iran continues supporting Bashar Assad, sponsoring global terrorism, committing egregious human-rights abuses against its own people and developing ballistic missiles — and that’s not all. As the requirements for a deal have crumbled, Iran has pushed dangerously toward regional hegemony. Through its terrorist proxies, Tehran now controls Arab capitals in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
If the deal that comes out of the ongoing negotiations “makes the United States and our allies demonstrably safer for decades,” Block wrote, Congress should support the deal.
If, however, the administration proposes an agreement that rewards Iran for decades of bad behavior, and fails to meet the needed standards, Congress must push back forcefully to protect our national security and global interests, and those of our allies.
Block argued in The Baltimore Sun last week that the “dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure must be part of any final nuclear deal with Iran.
[Photo: A.Davey / Flickr]