Lynch: Repealing Iran deal would cut off inside info
U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch joined Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” program Friday to talk about President Trump’s recent comments on the Iran nuclear deal.
Q: The president has said Iran has been violating the nuclear agreement and it seems as though he’s asking Congress to make some changes. What are your thoughts on that?
A: My greatest fear is that he would pull out and abrogate the agreement. It sounds like he’s not going to do that ... Right now we have international atomic energy agency inspectors and monitors in every single one of the facilities that we’ve identified in Iran who provide regular reports to us on what they’re doing. Part of the agreement requires them to dismantle some of the centrifuges and other apparatus that produces nuclear fuel ... We never had this access before, and so we don’t have to doubt anymore about what Iran is up to in regard to a potential nuclear weapons program. If we abrogate that, I think the problem would be that we will lose access, we will lose the intelligence that we’re getting every single week from those monitors, and that would make us less safe and make the world less safe, in my opinion. And the hardliners in Iran are extremely angry that we have agents in their facilities providing intelligence, and they would like in the worst way to get rid of our monitors, and I think Trump is playing into their hands by threatening to pull out.
Q: It also appears President Trump feels that he wants some harsher restrictions. What do you think about that?
A: Well this is a multilateral agreement between Russia, China, France and Britain. It was a compromise agreement, I’m sure every one of them, including Iran, would want changes as well. So if we’re going to renegotiate, that means the agreement’s over. I understand that there are aspects of this agreement that he doesn’t like. I agree with him on that; I don’t like everything in this agreement, but it is better than the condition that we had when we had no agreement. We were totally in the dark. Iran was accelerating rapidly toward a time where they would have a nuclear weapon; that has stopped.
Q: Congressman, are you 100 percent confident that we’re getting unfettered access to everything?
A: Up until the last briefing that I had with our people, yeah. They’re saying that they’re totally in compliance, that they’ve given us access and so yeah, I’m confident right now that we’re getting the information we need to make a judgment that Iran is compliant with the agreement and is not pursuing nuclear weapons.