Ex State Dept Official Believes Iran Nuclear Deal Talks Are Dead
(PatriotWise.com) – The former spokeswoman for the Trump State Department recently suggested that the ongoing protests in Iran have likely driven a stake through the heart of the Biden Administration’s negotiations to restart the 2015 Iran Deal.
During a panel discussion at the Richard Nixon Foundation’s Grand Strategy Summit last week, Morgan Ortagus, who worked under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said she didn’t see “any room or any space” for the Biden administration to kick-start the stalled negotiations. Ortagus said moving forward with the negotiations “would be a political disaster” domestically as well as a disaster for the Iranian people “who are rejecting the regime.”
Ortagus asked how the Biden administration could “financially empower the very oppressors” of the women “we’re supposed to be standing up for.”
She said that the Biden administration has “zero leverage” with Tehran right now and the nationwide protests sweeping across Iran will likely be the final nail in the coffin for revitalizing the 2015 nuclear deal.
Ortagus also noted that the Biden administration has voiced support for the protesters, but has been careful not to advocate for regime change in Tehran.
Another panelist, Jon Alterman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pushed back on Ortagus’s assessment, arguing that the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign on the Iranian regime failed because America’s allies were not on board with it.
Alterman said it was a mistake to argue that the Biden administration believed the Iran deal was going to “fix Iran.” He said the United States’ record of regime change is “pretty checkered.”
Alterman said the Biden administration’s decision not to advocate for regime change was the right one. He said the administration is “walking a reasonable line” by criticizing the regime’s abuses while being careful not to “advocate for the protesters.”
Ortagus countered that regime change in Iran was never the focus of the Trump administration. Instead, the Trump administration was focused on stopping Iran from “fomenting terrorism across the Middle East and Europe.” She said the Iranian people should be the ones to decide who leads them.
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