Five Reasons McCain Is Against the Iran Deal
At Brookings on Tuesday, a full house watched Sen. John McCain debate the Iran nuclear deal. He opposed it, along with Brookings senior fellow Leon Wieseltier; Brookings Intelligence Project director Bruce Riedel and senior fellow Suzanne Maloney supported the JCPOA.
CBS chief White House correspondent Major Garrett moderated the debate, where McCain discussed five of the top reasons he finds the JCPOA a "very bad deal."
(1) It puts Iran on track to develop nuclear weapons in 10 years.
(2) It legitimizes the world's greatest supporter of terror. Iran funds terror in states including Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, and it has shown no indication that it's changing its behavior, McCain points out. "We're talking about Iran as though it's on another planet."
(3) The money bothers him as much as anything else, said McCain. With a relaxation of sanctions, the deal hands tens of billions of dollars to the regime. The same regime has a long record of hegemonic behavior, support of terrorism, and still holds four Americans captive, including a Washington Post reporter.
(4) Verification will be difficult. From previous statements that there would be access any time, any place, the deal gives a 24-day delay before IAEA inspections. Prior to that, there must be a majority vote by a multinational commission—of which Iran is an equal member—to approve the visit.
(5) There are other options. It is intellectually dishonest, says McCain, to present the situation as the Iran deal or war.
Suzanne, arguing in support of the JCPOA. It's not a perfect deal, she says, but there's no regime change forthcoming and we are not getting a better deal. There is no situation in which sanctions will be strengthened, she added. That may work for a time but will ultimately fail, as the rest of the international community has no interest in further sanctions.
Leon called the deal a "respite not a release," from the threat of a nuclear Iran. He regards it as having only moderately mitigated a threat, in exchange for strengthening a "contemptible regime." If the deal doesn't solve the problems it set out to solve, he says—blocking all Iranian paths to a nuclear weapon and providing verification of past military actions and nuclear development—how can supporters call it a good deal?
Brice has no false ideals about Iran, he says; he has buried colleagues who were tortured and murdered there. However, he agrees with Suzanne that there isn't a better deal available. He also agrees with McCain that the Middle East is in chaos and that Iran is "up to no good," but says that if Congress didn't implement the deal, the region would be in confusion and would think that America doesn't speak with one voice. As for the threat to Israel, he cites the country's nuclear capability, strong intelligence service and ability to defend itself. We need to bolster our allies' abilities to counter terrorism in the region, Bruce added.
After the debate we snapped Brookings Foreign Policy director Bruce Jones, who mentioned that Congress may vote on the deal as soon as this week.
A quick survey of the audience before and after the debate showed that a full 73% of viewers supported the JCPOA beforehand, with the rest against or undecided. Afterward (once "undecided" was no longer an option), 85% of attendees were for the deal and the other 15% against. Where do you stand? Let us know where and why at Roksana@bisnow.com.
