US Offers To Restart Nuclear Deal Talks With Iran — Pompeo, Other Critics Slams Biden For Dropping Leverage
President Joe Biden’s administration is keen in restarting talks with Iran, after former president Donald Trump dropped the controversial nuclear deal with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
“In addition to signaling a willingness to talk with Iran, the administration also reversed the Trump administration’s determination that all UN sanctions against Iran had been restored,” The Associated Press reported, adding that the Democratic administration also “eased stringent restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats posted to the United Nations.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that the US under Biden “would accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran’s nuclear program.”
Reports noted that while such an invitation has yet to be issued — it is to be “expected shortly” after correspondence with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his European counterparts.
Biden ‘must not squander’ leverage
Experts, however, warned that such a move would put the US at a disadvantage, with it “giving up all [its] leverage” in a bid to bring Tehran back to the negotiation table.
“The Biden Administration is repeating the mistakes of the Obama Administration,” National security expert Tim Morrison, who was on Trump’s National Security Council and currently senior fellow at the Hudson Institute told The Daily Wire — referring to the 2015 nuclear deal as “dangerously flawed.”
“It’s making concessions to get nothing more than a meeting. The Iran deal was dangerously flawed in 2015. In 2021, with key provisions expired, it’s simply national security malpractice to return to that deal. The Trump Administration bequeathed Biden tremendous leverage over Iran — it must not squander it,” Morrison added.
Meanwhile, following the Biden administration’s pronouncement that it is ready to join talks to resume the Iran nuclear deal, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other critics blasted the Democratic administration.
“The Ayatollah understands only strength. I led a response to the Iranian threat that protected the American people from its terror and supported the Jewish state of Israel,” Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon. “Adopting the European Union model of accommodation … will guarantee Iran a path to a nuclear arsenal.”
Pompeo noted that unlike former president Obama, who negotiated the bill with Iran, Trump’s administration “refused” to “appease the Iranian theocracy.”
Pompeo, critics slam Biden over Iran
“When the Iranians sense weakness, they’ll attack,”Pompeo said earlier. “What we did is that when they came after an American, we made this very clear: Whether they attacked an American through a proxy force in Iraq, whether they attacked an American through Hezbollah in Syria, wherever it was, wherever Iran was responsible, we were going to hold the Iranians accountable. That’s the kind of strength that built the deterrence model that we had with respect to Iran. I hope that this current administration won’t give up on that.”
“We know that under President Obama, they coddled the Iraniain regime. They signed up for a deal that presented a pathway, a clear pathway to a nuclear weapon. When the Iranians will sense that that’s the deal, they can strike, they’ll continue to inflict costs on the American people.”
Pompeo went on to say that the US “can’t go back” to what he referred to as a “crappy deal” that allowed Tehran to push the US around. “When President Biden talks about going back, the American people can’t afford to go back to those policies.”
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul also hit the Biden’s administration for dropping what could have been its leverage to talk Iran into a “broader deal.”
“It is concerning that the Biden administration is already making concessions in an apparent attempt to re-enter the flawed Iran deal,” McCaul said.
President Trump said in 2018 that the Iran deal which had the US paying Tehran US$1.7 billion was “defective at its core,” and that “Iran lied” about its nuclear weapon ambitions and continued to pursue its nuclear enrichment program even after the deal with the US.
“In theory, the so-called ‘Iran deal’ was supposed to protect the United States and our allies from the lunacy of an Iranian nuclear bomb, a weapon that will only endanger the survival of the Iranian regime. In fact, the deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and, over time, reach the brink of a nuclear breakout,” the Republican President said back then.