WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yesterday joined Fox News Radio after President Trump announced that the United States will pull out of the nuclear agreement between the United States, Iran, and world powers. 

“Reengineering the potential plutonium reactor by filling its calandria with concrete and thus blocking the most credible path that Iran had towards plutonium, which would have been an ordered magnitude more dangerous than the uranium enrichment they were doing, that was a real accomplishment of the Iran nuclear deal. Getting their entire enriched uranium nuclear stockpile with a small exception shipped out of the country under international seal and supervision, that was an accomplishment. Getting the IAEA searching inspection capability in the country, that was an accomplishment. On the other hand, there were clear other issues in Iran's behavior that were not addressed by the deal. To think of Iran as a country that was dealing in good faith at all moments, all along its trajectory as it developed a nuclear weapons program would be profoundly naive, I never had that view. I hope that we can now find some path toward reengaging our allies, renegotiating with Iran and getting to a stronger deal, but I frankly think President Trump's decision today makes that less likely, not more likely,” said Senator Coons.

Audio is available here.  

Excerpts from the interview: 

Sen. Coons on the Iran Nuclear Deal: Thanks for a chance to be with you. It's great to have the opportunity to talk through where do we go from here on the Iran deal and on our security. 

Sen. Coons on where do we go from here: Well, about half of the remarks that the President made, I agree with. Like many Democrats, like many Republicans, I see Iran as a dangerous regime. A regime whose ballistic missile program, whose human rights record, whose support for terrorism makes it deserving of our attention, of our strong efforts to constrain them, and to make sure that they are less able to spread their brand of terror in the region and in the world. But, what I disagreed with was his timing and his decision to leave the Iran deal. It was not a perfect deal, it only intended to deal with the nuclear weapons ambitions of Iran, not to deal with the other areas that the President and I find so concerning about Iran's ongoing behavior. The IAEA, the nuclear inspector organization, and our allies all confirmed that Iran has so far kept to the terms of the Iran deal. I would have strongly preferred if President Trump had chosen to build on those foundations, to address the key issues that he identifies and that I agree ought to be addressed, about the ballistic missile program and the support for terrorism in the region and the future path post the Iran deal, and I think our three closest European allies were very intent on doing that with him. Now, we're in a different place. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know if Iran is going to resume enrichment, we don't know if President Trump and the administration will impose hard secondary sanctions on our European allies. And, we don't know what impact this will have on his ability to negotiate a deal with North Korea. 

Sen. Coons on how this will impact the upcoming talks with North Korea: Well, I think one of the strongest parts of the Iran agreement was the inspections. We got searching, continuous inspections of all known nuclear sites. Not just enrichment sites, but uranium mines and uranium mills, and the places where centrifuges were developed and tested. That is a complete nuclear fuel cycle testing and inspection regime. We have to have something comparable in North Korea to have any kind of a credible agreement. My concern is that Kim Jong Un and President Trump have reasons to want to do a positive but superficial meeting, summit, and agreement. And, a summit without a strategy and a summit without a strategy that we can enforce is a very risky thing. Exactly the same group, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that has led successfully the inspections of Iran so far is the only group really capable of doing those inspections in North Korea. And, if we've turned our back on the credibility, thoroughness, and respectability of their inspections in Iran, it raises the question about how would President Trump verify any commitment by Kim Jong Un to denuclearize. I'll remind you we've been here twice before. Kim Jong Un's father and grandfather made public commitments, signed agreements that they would denuclearize only to turn back from them. We can't trust the North Korean regime, just like we can't trust the Iranian regime, and we will need searching inspections to make any agreement work. 

More on the Iran deal: Well, I can see how the Netanyahu government and the Saudi government are encouraged by this -- they are directly threatened by Iran and they have been most of the vociferous publicly in their opposition to the deal. However, in private conversations, even leaders of those two countries have conceded that so far, the Iran Nuclear Deal has succeeded in blunting their nuclear ambitions. I do think it was a huge coup by Mossad to extract and publish for the world the archives of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. I do think it confirmed something that many of us believed for a long time, which was that Iran's protestations that their program was always peaceful were nothing but lies, and it reinforces that we have to be able to have accountability mechanisms in order to have an agreement with a regime like Iran in order for it to work. The alternative to a multilateral international agreement to constrain the ballistic missile and nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran is regime change. And, in both cases, I will tell you that is a prospect just too horrendous to contemplate. I don't want us hurdling toward another Iraq War where based on a credible fear of WMDs, we go into a country in the Middle East where we don't have the scale, the firepower, or the staying power to genuinely make a difference. I think we need to be pursuing diplomacy and I think our European allies are questioning now whether are a reliable partner in making diplomatic measures that will drive Iran in a better direction. 

Sen. Coons on Iran's faithfulness to a broader commitment: Well, I've never had the illusion that the Iranian regime just needed a little sweet talk and invitations to parties and they'd suddenly change their tune and rejoin the community of nations. I've always viewed as a dangerous and an untrustworthy regime. I can't speak for whether that's the case for all of my colleagues or not, but I thought one of things that was most commendable about the Iran deal was there were pieces of it that were confirmable, verifiable, and irreversible. For example, reengineering the potential plutonium reactor by filling its calandria with concrete and thus blocking the most credible path that Iran had towards plutonium, which would have been an ordered magnitude more dangerous than the uranium enrichment they were doing, that was a real accomplishment of the Iran nuclear deal. Getting their entire enriched uranium nuclear stockpile with a small exception shipped out of the country under international seal and supervision, that was an accomplishment. Getting the IAEA searching inspection capability in the country, that was an accomplishment. On the other hand, there were clear other issues in Iran's behavior that were not addressed by the deal. To think of Iran as a country that was dealing in good faith at all moments, all along its trajectory as it developed a nuclear weapons program would be profoundly naive, I never had that view. I hope that we can now find some path toward reengaging our allies, renegotiating with Iran and getting to a stronger deal, but I frankly think President Trump's decision today makes that less likely, not more likely. 

More on the Iran deal: I do think close consultation with Congress and congressional oversight and engagement is essential. I worked with Senator Corker to make sure that Congress had a role in the Iran deal. Frankly, one of the other things I'll point to, in the North Korea negotiations, it's key that we get agreements that are irreversible and verifiable for changes in North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programs and its other WMD programs. North Korea is a very dangerous regime, so is the Iranian regime. My hope is that the President will keep Congress regularly updated and informed, but I'll remind you, the bipartisan sanctions bill that we passed last year by a margin of 98-2 called on President Trump to deliver a strategy for how to deal with Iran to Congress by January. He still hasn't developed or delivered it, we're still waiting for that consultation. I will simply say in a positive vein, I am hopeful that with a new Secretary of State, we will have a new level of consultation and I do hope Congress will have the opportunity to weigh in on whatever agreement is reached with North Korea or with our allies with regards to Iran. 

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