In an open letter to President Biden Wednesday, 46 retired U.S. generals and admirals voiced their opposition to the ongoing negotiations with Iran on striking a nuclear deal.
“In Ukraine, we are bearing witness to the horrors of a country ruthlessly attacking its neighbor and, by brandishing its nuclear weapons, forcing the rest of the world largely to stand on the sidelines,” the letter, penned in coordination with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), said. “The new Iran deal currently being negotiated, which Russia has played a central role in crafting, will enable the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism to cast its own nuclear shadow over the Middle East.”
Top military officials expressed concern that the Biden administration’s determination to re-enter a nuclear deal with Tehran could weaken the U.S.’s position to hold Iran accountable.
Despite warnings from member nations like the U.K., France and Germany, the U.S. abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 under the Trump administration over what it regarded as weak points in the deal.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), did not report that Tehran had violated the JCPOA, but Iran’s continued deployment of ballistic missiles – capable of carrying a nuclear warhead – prompted the U.S. to withdraw from the agreement.
Retired Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, who also formerly served as deputy commander of U.S, European Command, said he supports finding a solution to the nuclear issue in the Middle East through diplomacy, but argued no deal is better than a bad deal.
