US Senator John McCain said on Thursday the Obama administration is desperate for a nuclear deal with the Iranian regime and making too many concessions as negotiators in Vienna scramble to wrap up talks.
“Many concessions have been made, and I guess they are trying to force some more because it’s clear who wants the deal more, and that’s the United States,” McCain said on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Thursday.
“A bad deal in my view is worse than no deal at all because with the sanctions lifted, they continue their acts of terrorism,” he said, noting reports claiming that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are directly helping Shiite militias in Iraq.
“The president bases all of this on the delusion that an agreement will cause a partnership between the United States and Iran in the region, meanwhile the Iranians continue their aggression in at least four countries,” he said.
McCain, a Republican Senator from Arizona and the Chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, added that negotiations haven’t curbed the Iranian regime’s meddling in the affairs of Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
McCain said there are media reports that Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), is back in Iraq directing the Shiite militias. “That’s a long way from where we were in 2011.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have been meeting daily for two weeks in Vienna to overcome obstacles to a deal whereby the regime would curb parts of its nuclear program in return for an end to sanctions. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his British and German counterparts have also rejoined the negotiations.
Over the past two weeks, the Iranian regime and the P5+1 – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.S. – have twice extended deadlines for completing the long-term nuclear agreement.
