Foreign Policy Experts Warn Against Iran Deal, Calling It ‘Threat’ to US Security

President Barack Obama has launched a sweeping campaign to sell his historic Iran deal to Congress, advertising the accord as the sole alternative to war with Tehran to convince skeptical lawmakers to buy in.

Foreign policy experts and opponents of the deal pushed against the administration’s pitch during a Heritage Foundation panel Thursday, arguing that the reality is more complex.

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Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the administration’s claim that international sanctions would easily snap back if Iran violates the accord is also applicable to the front end of the deal.

“You can’t say, ‘I have this tool to snap back and it’s fairly easy to snap back if there is agreement’ … but then say the alternative to this deal is war,” he said. “You have a whole arsenal of other policy choices and to suggest otherwise is disingenuous.”

“I think that the underlying assumption here is that the nuclear deal will unlock relations between Iran and the West by empowering those inside the regime who understand that Iran has to change in order to remain a player in the international community,” Ottolenghi said.

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