Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, are likening President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran to the Munich agreement that paved the way for World War II, saying it makes war “more, not less, likely.”
And for members of Congress, who face a vote on the agreement next month, the choice before them is whether to facilitate “Tehran’s deadly objectives with potentially catastrophic consequences for the United States and our allies.”
“The Obama agreement will lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East and, more than likely, the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” the two wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Friday night.
“The president has tried to sell this bad deal by claiming that there is no alternative, save war. In fact, this agreement makes war more, not less, likely,” they wrote. “In addition to accelerating the spread of nuclear weapons across the Middle East, it will provide the Iranians with hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which even the Obama administration admits likely will be used to fund terror.”
The Cheneys criticize what they see as inadequate verifications for inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites, the removal of restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and the lifting of sanctions against the regime, which they believe will help Iran fund terror.
“It is possible to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon, but only if the U.S. negotiates from a position of strength, refuses to concede fundamental points and recognizes that the use of military force will be required if diplomacy fails to convince Iran to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons,” they wrote.
But they said the 2016 presidential election provides hope that the United States’ can reverse course.
“The right person in the Oval Office can restore America’s strength and alliances, defeat our enemies, and keep us safe. It won’t be easy. There is a path forward, but there are difficult decisions to be made and very little time,” they wrote.
The op-ed was adapted from an upcoming book by the Cheneys entitled “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America,” which is set to be published on Tuesday.
Asked Friday about an upcoming foreign policy speech Cheney is set to give next month at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest dismissed the former vice president’s criticism of the nuclear agreement.
“The same people making the same arguments against the Iran deal were the people who advocated for getting us into the war of Iraq in 2002 and 2003,” he said at a news briefing.
Cheney’s speech on Sept. 8 is being billed as “a major address concerning the deal’s consequences for the security and interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East.”