GOP Presidential Candidates Slam Obama’s Deal with Iran

GOP presidential candidates are slamming the Obama Administration’s deal with Iran that was announced Tuesday.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) said:

Shame on the Obama administration for agreeing to a deal that empowers an evil Iranian regime to carry out its threat to “wipe Israel off the map” and bring “death to America.” John Kerry should have long ago gotten up on his crutches, walked out of the sham talks, and went straight to Jerusalem to stand next to Benjamin Netanyahu and declared that America will stand with Israel and the other sane governments of the Middle East instead of with the terrorist government of Iran.

Huckabee addded: “As president, I will stand with Israel and keep all options on the table, including military force, to topple the terrorist Iranian regime and defeat the evil forces of radical Islam.”

Carly Fiorina appeared on CBS Tuesday morning and discussed President Obama’s comments on the deal.

“He says it makes a nuclear arms race less likely – our Arab allies have said just the opposite, so has Israel. So… there is reason for suspicion here that is not partisan.”

Fiorina said the allies think it makes an arms race more likely because Iran has demonstrated bad behavior for more than 30 years and both China and Russia have an interest in opening up Iran’s economy. Fiorina said the Administration caved.

Meanwhile, “This is not going to sell to the Congress or the American people, it won’t sell to the Arabs, certainly not going to sell to the Israelis,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on CNN’s “New Day.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) echoed Graham on Congressional approval saying, “I expect that a significant majority in Congress will share my skepticism of this agreement and vote it down.”

Rubio posted on Twitter, “It will be left to the next President to return us to a position of American strength and re-impose sanctions on this despicable regime.”

The most recent GOP candidate to enter the race – Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) – said this deal would be remembered as one of America’s worst diplomatic failures:

The deal allows Tehran to dismantle U.S. and international sanctions without dismantling its illicit nuclear infrastructure—giving Iran’s nuclear weapons capability an American stamp of approval. In crafting this agreement, President Obama has abandoned the bipartisan principles that have guided our nonproliferation policy and kept the world safe from nuclear danger for decades. Instead of making the world safer, this deal will likely lead to a nuclear arms race in the world’s most dangerous region. What’s worse, the deal rewards the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism with a massive financial windfall, which Iran will use to further threaten our interests and key allies, especially Israel.

Walker called on Congress and all presidential candidates – including Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton – to repudiate the deal.

Iran’s Supreme Leader should know that a future American president will not be bound by this diplomatic retreat. Undoing the damage caused by this deal won’t be easy. But when the United States leads, and has a president who isn’t eager to embrace Iran, the world will follow. In order to ensure the safety of America and our allies, the next president must restore bipartisan and international opposition to Iran’s nuclear program while standing with our allies to roll back Iran’s destructive influence across the Middle East.

CNN reported that former Pennsylvania Gov. Rick Santorum responded to the deal by saying:

We’ve legitimized them. We’ve given them legitimacy in the international community something that they deeply wanted here, and they’ve done basically nothing in exchange for that. They come out of this a much, much stronger and I believe more virulent state with very, very few responsibility, in fact nothing in this deal curbs their terrorism. There’s nothing that says that they have to cease any type of terrorist activity.

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) said Obama has made two years of humiliating concessions – including the deal with Iran.

“He should have walked away. Iran joins the sad list of countries were America’s red lines have been crossed. 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. The deal threatens Israel, it threatens the United States, and it turns 70 years of nuclear policy on its head,” Christie posted on Twitter.

Christie urged Congress to reject the deal.

Dr. Ben Carson did not post an update on Twitter as of Tuesday morning on the final Iran deal, but on Sunday Carson posted, “Reagan:”Trust, but verify”. Re: ‪#IranTalks, we need to verify ‪@POTUS concessions! ‪@BarackObama come clean, show all cards to ‪#WeThePeople.”

Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) also did not comment as of Tuesday on the final deal, but posted on Twitter Monday, “The Obama Administration’s negotiating strategy with Iran is called appeasement. We should walk away.”

The deal now goes to Congress which has 60 days to review and either approve or reject the final deal with Iran.