Trump's former national security adviser says reentering Iran deal would be 'huge mistake'
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who served as national security adviser from 2017 to 2018, assesses Trump’s Middle East record, reflecting on his career in the region’s battlegrounds.
In the latest episode of Al-Monitor’s "On the Middle East" podcast series, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, former national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, called the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal "deeply flawed" and "a political disaster masquerading as a diplomatic triumph."
McMaster, the Fouad and Michelle Ajami chair at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, told Al-Monitor's Andrew Parasiliti that if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the presidency, reentering the Iran nuclear deal, as Biden said he would do if Iran is in compliance, would be a "huge mistake."
“What’s immensely important now, and what the biggest accomplishment of the Trump administration has been, is to put the economic pressure on the regime, to force a choice, and ultimately, it will be up to the Iranian people to voice a desire to change the nature of their government,” he said.
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) required the Iranian government to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international financial and oil sanctions. In addition to the United States and Iran, the deal's other signatories included the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China.
