Merkley: We Want Iran to Abandon Nukes ‘Forever’, They Did Under Obama Before They Started Enriching

On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) stated that we want to be in a “situation where Iran completely abandons, forever, its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. It did, in fact, do that under the agreement that President Obama negotiated.” But they started enriching to a higher level after the U.S. withdrew from the deal.

Merkley said, “I strongly support President Trump’s initial impulse, which is to stay out of it. The U.S. is positioned now — since it’s been holding conversations with Iran over its nuclear capabilities — to play a diplomatic role and try to bring an end to this conflict. That certainly would disappear if the U.S. got directly involved. Israel, of course, would like to have some of the bunker-busting bombs, the big bombs and the ability to deliver them on larger U.S. planes. But I hope the U.S. keeps saying, no, you began this. This is yours. We’re going to stay out of it. I think Trump’s initial sense of this was the right direction.”

He added that “the goal is to end up in a situation where Iran completely abandons, forever, its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. It did, in fact, do that under the agreement that President Obama negotiated. Unfortunately, Trump pulled us out of that agreement, and Iran started enriching to a much higher level. Iran has said we are completely open now — they’ve said, just in the last few days — to an agreement that eliminates any potential path to a nuclear weapon. But we still want to enrich for domestic use. Well, the distance between those two things is huge, between a 3-5% enrichment versus a 90% enrichment. The U.S. is engaged in the details right now. Hopefully, this can be resolved once and for all.”

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