Former US national security adviser endorses Iran deal
Brent Scowcroft, former Republican US national security adviser, tells Al-Monitor that US failure to implement the nuclear agreement with Iran “would be an abdication of America’s unique role and responsibility, incurring justified dismay among our allies and friends.”
Bipartisanship, which has been in short supply since the Iran nuclear agreement was announced in July, is showing tentative signs of life as Congress nears an important vote on the issue.
In a draft op-ed that was shared in part with Al-Monitor on Aug. 13, Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush and a trusted confident of many of Bush’s successors, said that in his view the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran “meets the key objective, shared by recent administrations of both parties, that Iran limit itself to a strictly civilian nuclear program with unprecedented verification and monitoring by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the UN Security Council.”
“To turn our back on [the JCPOA] would be an abdication of America’s unique role and responsibility, incurring justified dismay among our allies and friends,” Scowcroft wrote.
Earlier, on Aug. 13, former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) published an op-ed with another former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin (D-Mich.), supporting the deal reached between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany on July 14.
