Former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, Admiral James Stavridis stated that the Iran nuclear deal is “dropping a golden shower of money on them” “a significant portion” of which will be used to facilitate wars and terrorism during an interview on Friday’s broadcast of Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade & Friends.”
Stavridis stated, “I’m deeply concerned about this deal because of the Iranian track record. … I think there is the possibility that they will try and cheat on this deal, and we need to know if they do. The second point is, we’re dropping a golden shower of money on them, 100 to 150 billion dollars, a significant portion of that, in my view, will be used to facilitate wars, proxy wars, terrorism through Hezbollah. We’re going to see Iran as an imperial power moving through the region, whether or not they have a nuclear weapon, so buckle up.”
Earlier, Stavridis said of the detention of US sailors by Iran, “It hurts your heart to see our sailors in those kinds of positions, and it’s just not appropriate. If those positions were reversed, and if an Iranian military vessel, for some reason, was in distress and went into US waters, we would pull up alongside it, we would try to find out what was wrong with it. We certainly wouldn’t have them all up on deck on their knees with their hands behind their heads. We wouldn’t take them into a locked up space, and then demand…a[n] apology, for what was a — as far as I could see, an accident of engineering problems at sea.” He further stated that while it’s a good thing the sailors were eventually released, Iran owes the US an apology, not the other way around. Stavridis added that there is a “distrust” and “difficult relationship” between the US and Iran that he doesn’t see getting better.
Stavridis also argued President Obama “overstates” the US’ strength in the world, in the past eight years, the perception by the US’ enemies that the US will use strength has been “diminished” and that claiming the US’ standing in the world is higher than it was when President Obama took office is “a very hard case to make.”
Later in the interview, Stavridis said that the US “made a very bad decision” by pulling its 15,000-man advisory force from Iraq, and that had this force stayed in place, the rise of ISIS would not have happened.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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