Ex-secretaries of state Kissinger, Shultz pan Obama’s Iran nuclear deal
Two former US secretaries of state – Henry Kissinger and George Shultz – penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday criticizing President Barack Obama for the framework agreement his administration reached with Iran last week.
The former top diplomats said that the framework agreement with Iran effectively concedes any option of using military force to compel Iranian compliance.
“Mixing shrewd diplomacy with open defiance of UN resolutions, Iran has gradually turned the negotiation on its head,” Kissinger and Shultz wrote in the Journal. “Iran’s centrifuges have multiplied from about 100 at the beginning of the negotiation to almost 20,000 today. The threat of war now constrains the West more than Iran.”
“While Iran treated the mere fact of its willingness to negotiate as a concession, the West has felt compelled to break every deadlock with a new proposal. In the process, the Iranian program has reached a point officially described as being within two to three months of building a nuclear weapon. Under the proposed agreement, for 10 years Iran will never be further than one year from a nuclear weapon and, after a decade, will be significantly closer.”