Biden rushing to renegotiate Iran deal will ‘slide’ US back to a worse time: Joe Lieberman
The US is better off ‘putting maximum economic pressure on Iran’
President-elect Joe Biden should avoid negotiating with Iran after the Obama administration created the "terrible" Iran Nuclear Deal, former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said on Thursday.
“I supported Joe Biden but, I must say, and I look forward to his presidency, but, I must say that I am concerned about this one area in policy toward Iran because the Iran nuclear agreement which the Obama administration negotiated, I think, was a terrible mistake,” Lieberman told FOX Business' "Mornings with Maria."
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Lieberman said that the United States would be “much better being out of” the Iran Nuclear Deal and “putting maximum economic pressure on Iran.”
“Without this, I don’t believe that the Arab countries and Israel would have had the courage to enter into these remarkable new accords: Israel and the Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan. These are real peace agreements that are taking shape, and, if the Biden administration rushes back into negotiations with Iran and lets them off easy, we’re going to slide back into a much worse time,” Lieberman said.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration will implement “a steady stream of sanctions through the end of the administration” as a “continuation of our policy,” according to a senior State Department official.
Senior Trump administration officials are also warning the incoming administration against relaxing pressure against Iran.
“If the pressure is not utilized, if it’s really discarded, that would be, I think, very foolish, even tragic,” said Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s special representative for Iran and Venezuela, while traveling this week in Saudi Arabia.
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Lieberman expressed “hope” that the incoming Biden administration will recognize that Iran has not "kept its promises."
“I hope and I believe that the incoming Biden administration will see how much things have changed in five years -- how little Iran has kept the promises it made under that nuclear agreement to stop supporting terrorism, to stop its missile programs, to end its nuclear program or pause it, which it never did,” Lieberman said.
Lieberman went on to say, “So, I think we’ve got to remain tough with Iran and that is the way to achieve real peace in the middle east.”
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Fox News' Rich Edson contributed to this report.