Josh Block, CEO and President of The Israel Project, issued the following statement in response to today’s announced nuclear agreement with Iran. The Israel Project publishes The Tower.
Today’s announcement of this nuclear agreement with Iran is a realization of the deepest fears and the most dire predictions of skeptics who have, for two years, been warning against exactly this outcome — a bad deal that both enriches this tyrannical regime and fails to strip Iran of nuclear weapons capability. The deal will give Iran billions in cash and sanctions relief to fuel its terror and war machines, shred the hard-won sanctions regime beyond repair, and enable the Iranians to get away with hiding the full extent of their nuclear work, infrastructure, and know-how. It will not have an enforceable inspections regime or a workable way to re-impose pressure on Iran when it cheats.
And then, after just over a decade, most of this deal will expire, and Iran will be allowed to have a full-blown nuclear program– a screw’s turn away from a nuclear weapon.
It is important to ask: if a 3-month nuclear breakout by Iran is a problem today, why are we giving the Mullah’s in Tehran hundreds of billions of dollars, all so Iran will have a zero break out time, according to President Obama himself, in just over a decade?
Iran’s repressive regime needs economic relief far more than we need an agreement by these terms. Prior to this round of talks in September 2013, Iran was six-months from a balance of payments crisis and total economic calamity. Rather than leveraging that pressure to stop Iran and dismantle its program, President Obama relieved it prematurely in order to secure an agreement that will midwife an era of nuclear terror and tyranny, at the expense of freedom, human rights, and American national security.
At the beginning of these talks, President Obama promised Congress and the American people that he would secure a good deal or walk away. He couldn’t bring home a good deal and he couldn’t bring himself to walk away. Instead, he walked away from every key position demanding the shuttering or dismantlement of Iran’s military nuclear infrastructure — including their fortified enrichment bunker, buried under a mountain, on a military base, where Iran will be permitted to continue enriching and developing its ability to spin faster and more advanced centrifuges.
To believe this is a good deal, you have to trust Iran. The American people, and their lawmakers, rightly, do not.
Over the next 60 days, Congress will review this accord, acknowledge that the President has, unfortunately, not lived up to the promises that he made, and instead delivered a deal that will make America, our children, and the world less safe.
The American people deserve better. Our negotiators can do better. Congress must insist on it, and reject this bad deal.
[Photo: The Israel Project / Flickr ]