Just as US Congress prepares to vote on the Iran Nuclear deal, the Republican and Democratic front-runners for the 2016 presidential race took diametrically-opposite positions on the landmark pact.
Donald Trump, deriding it as an “incompetently negotiated” deal in which Iran gained everything and America nothing, while Hillary Clinton extended her support, but asserted that she, if elected President, would “not hesitate to take military action” if Tehran renewed its nuclear push.
Trump, who joined a rally against the deal on Capitol Hill, said he as President will “totally renegotiate” it. Touting his record as an ace negotiator, he remarked: “We will have so much winning if I get elected, that you may get bored with winning.”
“Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran. And I mean never,” Trump thundered. While the US has not even attempted to secure the release of its four citizens imprisoned by Iran, fellow-negotiator Russia is going to make lot of money by selling ballistic missiles to Tehran.
“We’re going to get nothing,” he said, commenting: “We are led by very, very stupid people….If I win the presidency, I guarantee you that those four prisoners are back in our country before I ever take office.” As he put it to CBS News separately, “It’ll be a whole different deal and this country will be respected again.”
Clinton, on the other hand, lent support to the deal but sought to put the Iranian leadership on notice. “Here’s my message to Iran’s leaders: The United States will not allow you to acquire a nuclear weapon,” she said in an address to the Brookings Institution, the prominent Washington think tank.
“I will not hesitate to take military action if Iran attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon,” she said, laying out her broad approach if elected as President next year.