March 19, 2022. Warren Buffet said, "You can't make a good deal with a bad person," and I would add Country when discussing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, mostly known as the Iran nuclear deal. After months of negotiation, the Biden administration seems set on returning to this deal, even though it hasn't replaced it with a 'longer and stronger' deal like promised. This is a scary thing.
The 2015 Obama-Biden era agreement only postponed Tehran's potential nuclear threat to America, our allies, and geo-partners, including Israel. The agreement was not designed to end Tehran's ambitions, so in 2018 President Trump rightfully pulled us out of it.
The reckless idea that this nuclear agreement would control Iran's aggressive behavior by reducing its isolation on the world stage and expanding its international engagement is destructive.
Iran is still the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. Their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls critical parts of the nuclear program and coordinates its terrorist network linked to radical Iraqi militias and other state sponsors of terrorism like Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria's Bashar Assad regime, and Yemen's Houthi rebels.
By permanently lifting punitive economic sanctions on Iran under this bad nuclear deal in exchange for short-term restrictions on Iran's uranium-enrichment program, we will be funding a regime that would undoubtedly use it to cause mayhem, as it did shortly afterward 2015.
America can not ignore Iran's behavior and ambitions. Together with our allies, we must prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. The Biden administration's failure to take this opportunity to correct the defects in the original bad deal could make Iran's vision of being a nuclear power real. If that is the case we, as Americans, should pray that God helps us.
Jimmy Lee Tillman II is an author, historian, and the founder of the Martin Luther King Republicans. He is also an Academy Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, active with the American First Policy Institute, and Illinois GOP candidate for U.S. Senate.