The White House’s failure to ensure that the nuclear deal with Iran did not prevent the Islamic Republic from building new nuclear power plants has come under heavy fire from both Democratic and Republican politicians in the past few days.

After top Iranian nuclear official Ali Salehi announced last Thursday that Iran would spend $10 billion on the construction of two nuclear power plants, a State Department source admitted to the Washington Free Beacon that the nuclear deal “does not prevent Iran from pursuing new light-water reactors.”

That stance is “absurd [and] preposterous,” former Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) told The Tower.

Iran has continued in its aggression since the signing of the nuclear deal. It has increased its development of advanced ballistic missiles, its support for the mass-murdering Assad regime in Syria, and has taken American citizens hostage. There is simply no way that this behavior, and the missile development in particular, is consistent with an Iranian interest in pursuing a nuclear program for peaceful purposes.

Berkley is on the board of directors of The Israel Project, which publishes The Tower.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R – Texas) made similar remarks to the Free Beacon last week:

Nothing in the behavior of the Iranian regime in the year since the [deal] went into effect should give us any confidence that they will be confining their nuclear program to peaceful activities. Secretary Kerry seems to think that the mullahs are interested in curing cancer and civilian energy production, but their rapid progress in ballistic missile technology suggests they are far more determined to develop the nuclear weapons these projectiles are designed to deliver.

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