The United States must not strike a deal with Iran that allows the regime to maintain its capacity to build a nuclear bomb, former US Congressman Patrick Kennedy has warned.
Not must the US relax sanctions on the Iranian regime that would make it rich enough to bankroll terrorism in neighbouring countries, he wrote in the Providence Journal newspaper.
Mr Kennedy said: “As the White House races to conclude a deal with Tehran on Iran’s disputed nuclear program by a March 24 deadline, the American people should take a moment to consider the party we are trying to negotiate with.
“Iran is a tyrannical and theocratic regime that is extending its reach across the broader Middle East, exacerbating sectarian conflicts, and fostering opposition to Western interests – all while stringing along the United States and exploiting the Obama administration’s goodwill.
“Nonetheless, no one in the international community has yet had the guts to confront Iran’s aggression in the region – including in Iraq and Syria – and its suppression of domestic dissent, including mass murders to enforce its anti-democratic idea of theological purity.”
Iran’s treatment of Iranian Resistance members and execution of political prisoners dissenters exposes the extent of Iran’s brutality at home and abroad, Mr Kennedy wrote.
He added: “Members of the NCRI and its main constituent organization, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) have been harassed, hunted and murdered by the scores inside and outside Iran’s borders.
“Approximately 3,000 members of the MEK currently live in squalor at Camp Liberty near Baghdad, confined there by Iraqi forces that are increasingly under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force. Many of those Iranian exiles barely had time to bury loved ones killed by those same forces in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, before the forced closure of that settlement and the move across the desert.
“One wonders why the Obama administration feels that this is a partner worth negotiating with. The betrayal of American values cannot serve American foreign policy interests. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have failed to result in any material benefit to the international community. On the contrary. Iran’s supreme leader and foreign minister have both reiterated that they expect negotiations to result in the immediate removal of all economic sanctions against Iran.
“Meanwhile, the latest proposal placed on the table by the Obama administration reportedly will let Iran keep many of its 10,000 operational centrifuges, thus doing little to limit Iran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon. Our Congress must take all necessary measures to prevent such concessions.”
The unacceptability of a nuclear-armed Iran was the main premise behind the negotiations in the first place, and now the US must be strong enough not to relax sanctions in its bid to strike a deal with the mullahs, he said.
Mr Kennedy concluded: “It will take guts to re-impose the economic pressures that brought Iran to the nuclear negotiating table. It will take guts to support the democratic alternative that the NCRI represents. But a clear understanding of the nature of Tehran’s threat should help us summon the courage to say enough is enough, and to make it clear that we will no longer back down at the negotiating table or in any place the mullahs seek to extend their reach.”
