And the United States?
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Ignore Iran and let it proceed as it wishes.
EU and US leaders have said the Iran deal paves the way for broad co-operation with the Islamic Republic, widening their differences with the Israeli government.
Mr. President, throughout the history of the Republic, certain decisive moments have fundamentally altered the national security of the United States.
Opponents of the final nuclear deal agreed in Vienna, notably Israel, have cited figures of $100 billion and more, saying access to such large sums would allow Iran to boost its support for militant groups across the Middle East. Tehran has said the money is needed for domestic investment in oil and gas, petrochemicals and other key industries.
We would avoid the threat of war or the use of military force while gaining a safer world. This is simply disingenuous.
This is the best deal available, and the only alternative to taking it, with all its faults, is to walk away from any deal at all.
Analysts quoted in financial and trade media see an eventual ramp-up of 1m bpd in Iranian oil production, which had languished at 2.8m bpd during the first half of 2015 – about 1.1m bpd going to exports that were exempted from the sanctions.
Second, much ink has already been spilled about the technical weaknesses of the Iran deal.
Obama could be betting this latest show of Septet- Iranian co-operation will finally procure Security Council approval to destroy their common enemy – Islamic State – which Obama’s American- led coalition of 62 states has spectacularly failed to accomplish.
There has been a lot of recent coverage in the news about the Iran nuclear agreement. Energy-starved Pakistan will have a golden opportunity to conclude a long-discussed natural gas pipeline deal with Iran. Why exactly then is Khamenei making clear the opposite? So why was there no Russian plan to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? Israel will find it easier to come to terms with the agreement because, in the ultimate analysis, it ensures Israel’s nuclear supremacy in the region for a quarter century. Interesting, considering that’s the opposite of how we judge the U.S. It’s also interesting because it’s not true.
Mr. President, this is not a done deal. “One thing I’ve learned both at the Central Intelligence Agency and as secretary of defense” under President Obama, said Leon Panetta earlier this year, “is that the Iranians can’t be trusted”.
Iran’s response was to take “that hard currency windfall and put it disproportionately into its covert nuclear and ballistic missile programs”. Congress can lobby for this change, and should maintain American sanctions and applicable provisions in the U.S. Treasury Department’s SWIFT terrorist tracking finance program.
What’s more, a conventional-arms embargo imposed on Iran in 2007 will be lifted in just a few years, a last-minute concession by the administration. They are a big country and a sophisticated country in the region. And whose worldview will rule the 21st century? Obama can veto the bill if the deal is rejected, which in turn can be overridden by a two-thirds majority in Congress.
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The Iranian regime, by virtue of its radical religious nature, weak economy and political experiment with theocracy, should have borne the burden of coming to the negotiating table with the most to lose. A rejection of the deal would also feed the narrative already deeply embedded across the majority world that the United States operates with a hard-nosed exceptionalism and hypocrisy that blocks progress towards a more stable world free from proliferation and nuclear weapons.
