Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
The long and often-adversarial nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran might be on the eve of ending, but Republicans say it’s at the expense of American and Israeli interests and security.
Wednesday, Iran confirmed that it had received the United States’ response to a European Union-created agreement that would effectively recreate or closely approximate the 2015 agreement that ended during the presidency of Donald Trump.
“We have taken a principled approach to these negotiations from the start,” Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price said in his Tuesday briefing. “We have said, since we had first started down this road in the spring of last year, that if Iran is prepared to fully implement its commitments under the 2015 deal, then we are prepared to do the same. That, of course, remains as true today as it was last year.”
Iran has done little other than to confirm it had received and was reviewing the U.S. response.
Under the 2015 deal, Iran was given sanction relief in exchange for limiting its use of nuclear materials.
Republicans, though, have said that a return to the Obama-era policy would put too much trust in the Iranian regime and would be disadvantageous to America and its allies, particularly Israel.
The conservative thought process is rooted in the idea that one can not grow closer to Iran, allowing them to openly pursue the use of nuclear technology, without moving farther away from, and potentially endangering Israel.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) pointed to Iran’s regular proclamation of anti-Israel and anti-America rhetoric.
.@JoeBiden is willing to abandon Israel to make a failed & dangerous deal with Iran.
Iran chants "Death to America" and wants to destroy Israel. We cannot let Biden turn his back on our great ally to appease a murderous regime.https://t.co/jKyx10F1bJ— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) August 24, 2022
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was even more outspoken on the topic, saying a U.S.-Iran deal would only embolden Iran and allow Russia to indirectly threaten the U.S.
“The Iranian regime right now is trying to hunt down and murder former American officials and dissidents on American soil,” Cruz said in a statement. “This deal will quickly flood the regime with hundreds of billions of dollars, and soon afterwards the deal will be worth trillions. It will dismantle sanctions on the Iranian economy, which is controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and provides the IRGC with the resources it needs to export its terrorism globally.”
[The pending agreement] repeats the inexplicable folly of the previous nuclear deal by legalizing the regime’s nuclear program, which had previously been prohibited by multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. According to the deal, using waivers the Biden administration has already been providing, Russia and Putin can now help build up Iran’s nuclear program. It will eventually be used to develop nuclear weapons that will inflict destruction on America and our allies. When the Ayatollah chants ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel,’ he means it.
Opponents of the deal in the U.S. have at least one significant ally internationally. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has called the plan a “bad idea” that would destabilize the Middle East.
The violent, terroristic actions of the Iranian regime recently made headlines when author Salman Rushdie was stabbed and almost killed on stage at a planned event in New York. Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa, calling all Muslims to kill Rushdie and his publishers, in 1989 over the author’s book, “The Satanic Verses.” Rushdie spent years in hiding before returning to public appearances. He is still recovering from the attack. Iranian officials said the author is to blame for his attack for “denigrating the world’s Muslims.”
Also earlier this month, the U.S. charged a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with plotting to kill former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton.