Two of the central players in the Iran nuclear deal — former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State John Kerry — blasted the current administration's decision to pull the United States out of the agreement.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday afternoon he will take the U.S. out of the 2015 deal, which was designed to prevent Iran from creating a nuclear weapon. Trump and others on the political right have long criticized the agreement, saying it did not do enough to keep Iran in check.
Obama released a lengthy statement that tried to rip apart Trump's move, saying the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was actually working.
"Walking away from the JCPOA turns our back on America's closest allies, and an agreement that our country's leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals negotiated," Obama wrote on Facebook.
"In a democracy, there will always be changes in policies and priorities from one administration to the next. But the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America's credibility, and puts us at odds with the world's major powers."
Obama then laid out several reasons why the Iran deal should remain in place.
"Because of these facts, I believe that the decision to put the JCPOA at risk without any Iranian violation of the deal is a serious mistake," Obama wrote. "Without the JCPOA, the United States could eventually be left with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East."
Kerry, who worked closely with Iran and other nations to carve out the deal over two years, was also critical of Trump's decision.
"Today's announcement weakens our security, breaks America's word, isolates us from our European allies, puts Israel at greater risk, empowers Iran's hardliners, and reduces our global leverage to address Tehran's misbehavior, while damaging the ability of future administrations to make international agreements," Kerry said in his own statement.
"Instead of building unprecedented nonproliferation verification measures, this decision risks throwing them away and dragging the world back to the brink we faced a few years ago."