A group of Iraq war veterans have formed a group to oppose the nuclear deal with Iran, Eli Lake and Josh Rogin of Bloomberg View reported yesterday.
The group, Veterans Against the Deal, was founded last month as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and it does not disclose its donors. Its national campaign starts today, including television ads in states whose members of Congress are undecided on the Iran deal. Lawmakers will vote on it in September.
The first of the group’s videos features retired staff sergeant Robert Bartlett, who was badly injured by an Iranian bomb while serving in Iraq in 2005. “Every politician who is involved in this will be held accountable, they will have blood on their hands,” he says in the ad. “A vote for this deal means more money for Iranian terrorism. What do you think they are going to do when they get more money?”
The video, which shows Sgt. Bartlett asking Sen. Jon Tester (D – Mont.) to vote against the deal, is embedded below.
Michael Pregent, the executive director of the group, explained the group’s goals: “We are going to challenge those people who are on the fence. Our main argument is that veterans know Iran better than Washington, D.C., does. You’ve got a lot of veterans out there who are pretty upset about this, so we are looking to capture their voices and make sure they are heard.” Pregent, who served as an intelligence adviser to American forces in Iraq, said that his group is supported by Democrats, Republicans, and veterans who oppose the deal.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, the outgoing chairman of of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that more than 500 American soldiers were killed as a result of Iranian attacks in Iraq.
In I Saw the U.S. Hand Iraq Over to the Iranians. Is the Whole Region Next?, which was published in the February 2015 issue of The Tower Magazine, Pregent wrote that the nuclear deal can’t be separated from Iran’s ambition to expand its sphere of influence in the Middle East.
The U.S. is not only stumbling toward Iran on the issue of nuclear weapons. It is doing the same in Iraq, where the U.S. is acquiescing to Iranian influence and accepting Iranian dominance over the Iraqi government and many of the armed militias active in the country.
After so many years of American investment in trying to build a stable Iraq, the United States has effectively enabled an Iranian takeover of the country. I know, because I was there and saw it with my own eyes. That the Obama administration is not opposing the rising influence of Iran, as the White House prepares a historic deal to leave Iran with nuclear weapons just beyond its fingertips, is especially alarming, and a recipe for increasing regional conflict. …
Having witnessed this jarring turn of events, it is important to point out that this is not simply an Iraqi issue. It is a regional issue. The Iranian government believes that the U.S. wants a nuclear deal so badly that it will tacitly approve Iran’s activities throughout the Middle East—including in Syria and Yemen—by downplaying Iranian influence or ignoring it altogether. At the same time, Iraqi politicians cite the slow pace of America’s “strategic patience” as a reason to welcome Iranian support. But support comes with a price, and it is a price that will be paid not only by Iraq, but also the U.S. itself.
[Photo: Veterans Against the Deal / YouTube ]