Voting ‘No’ is the Way to Prevent War

As lawmakers and outside experts make their way through the deal (more on the details later) we see a common query: Yeah, the deal stinks but voting no would be worse. This is wrong for multiple reasons.

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First, the deal makes further aggression and conflict in the region certain even apart from the nuclear provisions. We are, in essence, arming our enemy and bolstering its economy so it can continue to attack our allies in the region. Aside from the moral monstrosity of the proposition (including lifting sanctions on Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, who killed hundreds of Americans), we invite further attacks on Sunni states and Israel, and, at some point, a military showdown with an emboldened Iran permitted to waltz into the nuclear power club. As sanctions expert Mark Dubowitz puts it, “The deal has to be rejected to position the next president with sufficient political support to take a tougher position against Iranian aggression, renegotiate some of the worst flaws of the deal and reconstitute [a] sanctions regime that is getting dismantled.”

In other words, preventing war begins with preserving sanctions, blocking Iran’s access to conventional weapons and missiles and reworking a deal before Iran gets a bomb. Dubowitz argues that the deal “is predicated on a snapback sanction device as the only peaceful enforcement mechanism, which will be practically and politically impossible to implement over time. It will leave a future U.S. president with only military force to stop an Iranian nuclear weapon.” Preventing that Hobson’s Choice begins with a “no” vote on the deal.

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Read the full article here.