Attacking...

GOP candidates vow to roll back Iran deal

By Nick Gass and Adam B. Lerner

The ink was barely dry on the nuclear agreement with Iran before Republican presidential candidates began attacking it as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad deal.

On Tuesday morning, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said the historic accord, announced early Tuesday in Vienna, is “akin to declaring war on Israel and the Sunni Arabs.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could have done better, he said.

“Hillary Clinton, if you think this is a good deal, then you’re dangerously naive. I think she could negotiate a better deal than this. I think everybody on our side could, except Rand Paul,” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“My initial impression is that this deal is far worse than I ever dreamed it could be and will be a nightmare for the region, our national security and eventually the world at large,” Graham said in a separate interview with Bloomberg.

Graham said the deal has created “a possible death sentence” for Israel.

“This is the most dangerous, irresponsible step I’ve ever seen in the history of watching the Mideast,” Graham declared.

Fromer Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said early Tuesday that the deal empowers the Iranians’ international legitimacy for virtually nothing in return.

“We’ve legitimized them. We’ve given them legitimacy in the international community, something that they deeply wanted here,” Santorum said in an interview on CNN. “I would have ratcheted up those sanctions. I would have continued to put pressure on this regime to capitulate. What we have here is not a capitulation.”

“The Iranians have never kept a deal. Never,” Santorum added. “There will be plenty of opportunity for the next president of the United States to make the case to the world that this deal … is fraudulent.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker panned the forthcoming Iran deal as he announced his presidential run on Monday evening. “We need to terminate the bad deal with Iran on day one, put in place crippling economic sanctions and convince our allies to do the same,” he said.

During an earlier interview with Fox News in June, Walker had said he’d be willing to negotiate with Iran, but on the U.S.’s terms, not Iran’s. “To me it’s real simple. Our terms would be you need to dismantle your illicit nuclear infrastructure. Secondly, you need to disclose fully and provide full transparency including immediate ability to inspect, particularly at their underground fortified facilities.”

Iran would also need to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, Walker added. The Iranians would also cease any “terrorist or terrorist-related activities” in Syria, or with the Houthi rebels in Yemen or anywhere else in the world.

“And they need to get rid of the intercontinental ballistic missiles, not only those targeted at Israel, but those potentially targeted at the United States,” Walker said. “Those are the terms of our deal. If they don’t, we need to pull back on that deal, put sanctions back in place from America and encourage our allies around the world to do the same.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday denounced the agreement as “appeasement,” not diplomacy.

“The nuclear agreement announced by the Obama Administration today is a dangerous, deeply flawed, and short sighted deal,” Bush said in a statement. “A comprehensive agreement should require Iran to verifiably abandon – not simply delay – its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.”

Previously, Bush had called the initial framework agreement a “horrific deal,” saying that the “net result of this is we’re likely to have proliferation in the region, you’re likely to have an emboldened Iran, not a humble Iran, and you’re likely to have our strongest ally in the region be threatened.”

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s latest ad warning against the nuclear deal used footage from Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 “Daisy” ad.

“A threat to Israel is a threat to America. Stand with Israel. Reject a nuclear plan,” text from the ad reads.

Defending the spot on Fox News on Monday, Huckabee said that if Iran becomes capable of producing nuclear weapons, “we’re now looking at the apocalypse because these people are crazy enough to use it, first against Israel and eventually against us.”

Huckabee on Tuesday morning blasted the deal announcement on Twitter.

In March, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal signed on to the open letter from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas warning that any nuclear deal might not last beyond the Obama administration.

On Tuesday, Cotton blasted the deal, calling it a “terrible, dangerous mistake” that will pave the way for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

“But more fundamentally, if they wanted to end their nuclear program and rejoin the civilized world, they could simply grant us access. They don’t. They are an outlaw, terrorist-sponsoring, anti-American regime. They have the blood of hundreds of American soldiers on their hands, who they killed in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said on MSNBC.

After negotiators reached a preliminary agreement in April, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz warned that the framework for the nuclear agreement with Iran was a “bad deal,” saying that it would appear to “dramatically undermine the national security of the United States.”

“This administration does not understand the people with whom they are dealing. Iran is run by theocratic zealots who embrace death and suicide,” Cruz told a gathering of Iowa Republicans, according to The Dallas Morning News. Ordinary cost-benefit analysis doesn’t work.” Cruz said he would end the deal on Day One.

In a statement released after Obama’s remarks, Cruz blasted Obama for the deal and for failing to mention the American citizens held in Iranian prisons.

“We owe it to our fellow Americans to elevate, not ignore, their plight, to demand their swift and unconditional release by the implacably hostile regime that holds them,” Cruz said.

Donald Trump echoed that sentiment later in the day, telling MSNBC that the U.S. negotiated from “desperation” and that those imprisoned should have been freed before negotiations even began.

“We should have said: ‘Let the prisoners out.’ They shouldn’t be over there,” he said.

Cruz isn’t the only Texan who has voiced opposition to a nuclear deal — former Gov. Rick Perry called the deal “one of the most destructive foreign policy decisions in my lifetime,” and has said that he would rescind any negotiated agreement as one of his first acts in the White House.

“I’m going to be a busy guy on Day One. From the time my hand goes off the Bible until you come to the inaugural balls, there’s gonna be a lot of work being done,” Perry said last month, according to The Washington Times. “One of the first things I would do is obviously, I would rescind any agreement that this president will have made with Iran.”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has said that he would reverse any deal on the first day of his administration in 2017, telling NPR that a Rubio White House “would simply re-impose the sanctions.”

On Tuesday, Rubio reiterated his position that a majority of Congress would vote down the agreement.

“Failure by the President to obtain congressional support will tell the Iranians and the world that this is Barack Obama’s deal, not an agreement with lasting support from the United States,” the senator said in a statement. “It will then be left to the next President to return us to a position of American strength and re-impose sanctions on this despicable regime until it is truly willing to abandon its nuclear ambitions and is no longer a threat to international security.”

For former HP executive Carly Fiorina, the first day in the Oval Office would consist of two phone calls.

“The first one would be to Bibi Netanyahu to reassure him that we stand with the state of Israel. The second one would be to the Supreme Leader of Iran to tell him that whatever the deal is that he signed with Obama, there’s a new deal and the new deal is this: Until you submit every facility [where] you have nuclear uranium enrichment to a full set of inspections, we’re going to make it as hard as possible for you to move money around the global financial system,” she said during a roundtable discussion on a New York radio station in June. “We can do that. We don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to do it.”

On Tuesday, Fiorina said there is much to be “suspicious” about in the nuclear deal.

“If you want a good deal, you’ve got to walk away sometimes,” she said on “CBS This Morning,” claiming that Russia and China have not been negotiating on the U.S.’ side of the table.

Other Republican contenders have been more cautiously skeptical about any deal with Iran.

“I’m not one of those guys who’s going to say to you, ‘On Day One, I will abrogate the agreement,’” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said earlier this month at a gathering of New Hampshire Republicans. “Because, by the way, it’s not just us involved anymore. We have a number of our allies around the world who’re at that table as well, and sanctions are most effective when not only we do it, but the other allies do it.”

But on Tuesday, Christie blasted the announcement, calling it the culmination of “two years of humiliating concessions by President Obama” and urging Congress to vote in numbers that would override any presidential veto.

“He should have walked away,” the New Jersey governor said in a statement. “The president is playing a dangerous game with our national security, and the deal as structured will lead to a nuclear Iran and, then, a nuclearized Middle East.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul expressed reservations about the framework agreement in April but vowed to “keep an open mind” in contrast to others in his party who have been “beating the drums for war.” In the same interview with NBC’s “Today” show, Paul said he supported legislation from Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that would give Congress the chance to approve or reject Iranian relief from sanctions.

For their part, Democratic presidential candidates expressed cautious optimism about the deal, though not all had weighed in as of Tuesday morning.

Arriving on Capitol Hill for a meeting with Senate Democrats, Hillary Clinton answered reporters’ questions about the deal with a simple “good morning, good morning” response.

According to reports of her meeting with congressional Democrats, Clinton offered a strong endorsement of the agreement.

Meanwhile, Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal called on Clinton to “be a voice of reason and oppose this deal.”

“While Secretary Clinton has been the architect of President Obama’s foreign policy, she can do the right thing and prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and oppose this deal,” Jindal said in a statement.

Her chief primary rival at this juncture, independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, called it “a victory for diplomacy over saber-rattling and could keep the United States from being drawn into another never-ending war in the Middle East.”

“I look forward to learning more about the complex details of this agreement to make sure that it is effective and strong,” he said in a statement released by his Senate office.

Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb called the deal “an important moment in terms of the future of American foreign policy,” tweeting that he looks forward to reading and examining the agreement.

Lincoln Chafee, the former Rhode Island governor and senator, tweeted his congratulations to Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, calling the deal with Iran (along with the diplomatic thaw with Cuba) a “historic breakthrough.”