Iran deal assailed from all sides

Iran deal assailed from all sides

By S.A. Miller and Bruce Golding

Republican and Democratic leaders alike expressed outrage Sunday over President Obama’s decision to sign onto a nuclear-arms deal that eases sanctions on the terror-loving leaders of Iran.

The double-barreled attack came as hundreds of cheering Iranians gave their country’s negotiators a heroes’ welcome as they returned from talks in Geneva. “No to war, sanctions, surrender and insult,” they chanted.

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The shock deal with the Islamic regime dominated morning TV talk shows, where officials from both sides of the aisle blasted the Obama administration and called for more sanctions to keep Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

Bronx Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, fumed that the “P5+1” group of world powers, including the United States, let Iran off the hook by agreeing to ease sanctions in exchange for a six-month pause in its nuke program. “I don’t think you make them bargain in good faith by going squishy,” Engel fumed on CNN’s “State of the Nation.”

Democratic New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who warned the United States “cannot afford a nuclear Iran,” said the deal is “sending the wrong kind of signals to Iran and the hard-liners of Iran. “It was strong sanctions, not the goodness of the hearts of the Iranian leaders, that brought Iran to the table,” the Senate’s No. 3 Democrat said in Manhattan.

“A fairer agreement would have coupled a reduction in sanctions with a proportionate reduction in Iranian nuclear capability.” Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has drafted a bill for new sanctions, said the deal made Obama look “weak” in Iran’s eyes.

“If you see the reaction in Iran right now, they’re spiking the football in the end zone saying, ‘Look, we’ve consolidated our gains. We’ve relieved sanctions. We’re going to have the right to enrich [uranium],’ ” Corker declared on “Fox News Sunday.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said the deal “rewarded very bad and dangerous behavior” by Iran. “We may have just encouraged more violence in the future than we have stopped,” he told CNN.

Rep. Peter King (R-LI), chairman of the homeland security subcommittee on terrorism, called the bargain a “serious strategic mistake” that amounted to “a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States and our allies in the Middle East, specifically Israel and Saudi Arabia.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed, saying: “It’s not a historic agreement. It’s a historic mistake.”

The White House’s “going behind Israel’s back” to conduct negotiations was a key source of recent tension between Netanyahu and Obama, BuzzFeed reported. “We did not know from the beginning, but we knew we had intelligence that these meetings were happening,” a senior Israeli minister told the Web site.

The official said the United States refused to give Israel information on the secret talks.

Late Sunday afternoon, the White House said Obama had called Netanyahu to discuss what the president has insisted is merely a “first-step agreement.” Both leaders reaffirmed their goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and Obama stressed that the US “will remain firm in our commitment to Israel,” the administration said.

Secretary of State John Kerry said on “Face the Nation” that the United States didn’t “trust” Iran and would monitor its nuclear program as talks continued. Iran Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif told NBC News: “If there are new sanctions, then there is no deal. It’s very clear.”