Warning against history repeating, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., implores House Democrats and the Biden administration not to return the U.S. to the "fatally flawed and one-sided" Iran nuclear agreement.
"The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal, was fatally flawed and one-sided for what was in the agreement, and fatally flawed and one-sided for what was left out," Zeldin wrote in a Fox News opinion piece.
"For reasons that include the expiring sunset clauses and other dynamics, this would be a strategic U.S. foreign policy blunder, exponentially more dangerous than the original 2015 decision to agree to the JCPOA in the first place."
Zeldin noted the Iran nuke deal never achieved its stated goal: "to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon."
"The decision by the Trump administration not to recertify the Iran nuclear deal in 2017 was undoubtedly the right call and in America’s best interests," Zeldin wrote. "However, even if the United States never withdrew from the deal, the sunset provisions poorly negotiated in the agreement would now be upon us, meaning Iran would be well on its way to obtaining a nuclear weapon all while having violated not only the spirit but the letter of the deal."
Zeldin rebukes House Democrats' claim the JCPOA "verifiably constrained Iran’s nuclear program," noting it would have never passed Congress then, now, or never in the future.
"At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in 2015, I questioned then-Secretary of State [John] Kerry about why the JCPOA wasn’t submitted to Congress as a treaty," Zeldin wrote. "His answer wasn't a constitutional analysis or based on any other legal reasoning of any sort. It was a political answer.
"The reason the JCPOA wasn’t submitted to Congress as a treaty, Kerry said, was because the Obama administration knew it wouldn’t have the votes to be ratified."
Zeldin calls for the U.S. to remain resolute against Iran – "smart, deliberate, strong and strategic."
"The irony of the House Democrats' call is that trying to reenter the 2015 JCPOA as is would be the 'potentially devastating miscalculation,'" Zeldin concluded.
"We must approach Iran from a position of strength and not surrender for the sake of domestic politics, partisan emotions, or uninformed whim. We must heed lessons from the past several years. We must understand that the weak and desperate adversary is the Iranian regime, not the United States of America."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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