Condi Rice Lambastes Iran Deal

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a harsh rebuke of the Iran nuclear deal in first public remarks on the issue on Thursday.

During a speech Chatham House in London, Rice said that while the deal “has some good elements,” the price that was paid “was pretty high.”

“It’s entirely possible that they are already at threshold status and we will never know it,” she asserted, according to remarks published by The Independent. “I fear that we are going to get into a lot of back and forth and disagreement about violations of the Iranians because… it’s never going to be black and white. One of the reasons why we had the Iraq problem was because we had uncertainty about what Saddam Hussein was actually doing. We had too many fights with the Russians and others about that. I fear we’re getting back to that.”

The former Sec. of State was one of the founders of the P5+1 along with former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. But while stressing that she’s a “big supporter” of having a two-track approach with the Iranians, the $100 billion in relief will be used :to destabilise the Middle East.”

“And by the way a lapse of the conventional weapons ban I fear is going to include an arms race in the Middle East, with the Iranians buying weaponry that won’t threaten the Israelis and the Saudis, it will threaten America denial capabilities. So it’s not a deal I care much for, but it’s there,” she added.

Rice, who is said to be in the Jeb Bush inner circle (she is chairman of his education foundation), said that she would never recommend the U.S. pulling out of the deal but hoped that the US, along with its European allies, will enforce the deal and make sure that snapback sanctions is an option if Iran’s behavior was deemed “unacceptable”.