The most insulting of Trump's lies was when he sought to pass himself off as a champion of the Iranian people.
Common Dreams
October 13, 2017
Trita Parsi
Trump's speech today was a national disgrace. This isn’t an effort to stiff a contractor over a real estate project, it’s a matter of war and peace. Donald Trump is in way over his head.
Contrary to the reporting, Donald Trump is killing the deal – not in one move, but in several moves. First, Congress will attempt to kill it through deal-killing legislation from Sen. Tom Cotton. If that is blocked, Trump has vowed to kill it himself. Either way, the deal will get killed by this process triggered by Trump.
Cotton's legislation would seek to unilaterally rewrite the nuclear deal, an unequivocal violation of the agreement. A vote for that bill would be as significant as a vote for the 2002 war with Iraq.
Trump is single handedly destroying U.S. credibility and all but guaranteeing that no country in their right mind would agree to a deal with the U.S. again. The U.S. has shredded alliances through go-it-alone approaches before, to disastrous effect. Trump’s has reduced America’s allies on Iran to just Benjamin Netanyahu and the Saudi royal family. Trump's "coalition of the willing" on Iran makes George W. Bush's old coalition on Iraq look like a diplomatic masterstroke.
The most insulting of Trump's lies was when he sought to pass himself off as a champion of the Iranian people. As we speak, Trump is banning nearly all Iranians from the United States. The majority of people targeted by Trump's Muslim ban are Iranian. Iranian Americans are being cut off from their family members in Iran thanks to Trump.
Congress must step in and make it clear that it will restrain this President and that the U.S. is fully committed to upholding its word on the Iran deal.
Trita Parsi is founder and president of the National Iranian American Council and an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign politics, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He is author of Losing an Enemy - Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy; A Single Roll of the Dice - Obama's Diplomacy with Iran; and Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States.
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