BIPARTISAN GROUP OF FOREIGN POLICY EXPERTS OFFER BIDEN ADMINISTRATION A THOUGHTFUL WAY FORWARD -
STOPIRANNOW.ORG Via United Against a Nuclear Iran
By: United Against A Nuclear Iran
April 10, 2021
3/5/2022 UPDATE: PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DRAFT "DEAL" BEING CONSIDERED IN VIENNA DOES NOT ADDRESS ANY OF THE AREAS OF CONCERN MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE.
United Against A Nuclear Iran is a very well regarded bipartisan organization headed by former Ambassador Mark Wallace and former United States Senator and Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Lieberman.
They have summarized the Key Failings of the Iran Nuclear Deal - JCPOA - concluding that:
"The JCPOA does not confirm the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program and provides a clear pathway to nuclear weapons."
Along with other well respected foreign policy experts UANI has penned a letter urging the Biden Administration to maintain the maximum pressure campaign while insisting on measures that will actually ensure that the Islamic Republic will not develop nuclear weapons. They noted that unlike the past - Iran's malign activities must be addressed in the context of the negotiations.
We express our support for this approach -- unfortunately it appears that the Biden Administration is ignoring it ...
We encourage you to SIGN THE LETTER....
President Joe Biden, his Administration, and our allies in the P5+1 are confronting a very different set of challenges and circumstances than what existed five years ago. It is likely that no foreign policy decisions will be as vexing as the ones they now face regarding Iran and the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
We would like to offer a thoughtful way forward, one that can create a broad consensus regarding how the United States confronts Iran. To do so is in America’s and our allies’ interests. Here in the United States, the election was very close. The country is clearly divided. And the JCPOA was not popular; it could not be turned into a full-blown treaty because it would not have passed Congress. Simply reversing the previous Administration’s Iran policy without trying to achieve an enduring policy consensus very much risks a “ping pong” phenomenon in US policy that will make any new agreement un-durable, with damaging repercussions that will almost surely lead to a nuclear arms race in the world’s most incendiary region.
Here’s the conundrum for policy-makers: On the one hand, the President said he would return to the JCPOA if Iran returned to compliance. On the other hand, the President and our allies will have to be clear-eyed about the regime in Tehran:
* Nobody doubts that truly free elections would return a more moderate Iranian government. Nonetheless, we have to deal with the world the way it is, not the one we wished it were. The Iranian government is deeply unpopular. It is a brutal abuser of human rights within Iran, massacring its opposition, kidnapping and executing its detractors, and imprisoning civil society activists.
* Iran still leads the world in state-sponsored terrorism. It still launders money, regularly plots assassinations abroad, props up other international outlaws with illicit trade, and fuels devastating proxy wars in the Middle East that endanger our allies’ security while protecting dictators that deploy barrel bombs and chemical weapons against civilians.
* Iran is a committed foe of the United States with the blood of American servicemen and women on its hands. Iran clearly has provided sanctuary to our most avowed enemies, including Al Qaeda. It continues to hold American hostages. It directs proxies that serve as hit-men targeting US military and diplomatic personnel.
* The Iranian regime has threatened repeatedly to encircle and annihilate Israel’s 9.3 million people, including 6.8 million Jews, a threat that must be taken seriously as it advances a program specifically intended to develop a nuclear weapons capability, and boasts of having precision- guided munitions that are targeted on Tel Aviv.
* Iran could end with one telephone call the devastating war that its proxies started in Yemen, but chooses not to do so, instead raining Iranian made missiles and drones – through proxies as well as directly from their own territory -- on our friends in the region.
* Iran’s is, finally, a state that still and, most momentously, commits nuclear extortion as it escalates and expands its nuclear program.