Several Former GOP Officials Now Endorsing Iran Deal

Former Treasury Secretary: Blocking Deal 'Unrealistic'

While the focus (and the tens of millions of dollars in lobbying) related to the Iran deal is pretty much entirely centered around the “undecided” Democrats, there is a growing call among Republican elder statesmen for the party’s Congressmen to rethink their opposition to the pact.

Right now, the Republicans, particularly in the Senate, seem more or less 100% against the deal, but a number of Republicans, including former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Richard Lugar and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are endorsing the deal.

Paulson was the most frank in his assessment, terming the idea of blocking an already negotiated deal that the rest of the P5+1 already agreed to as “unrealistic,” and noting that it would force the US to try to replace current multi-lateral sanctions against Iran with unilateral ones that simply “don’t work.”

Lugar took a similar position, saying that rejecting an already negotiated pact would put US reliability as a diplomatic party in doubt for decades to come, and saying none of the other P5+1 members would likely be willing to even try additional talks with Iran on this putative “better deal.”

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.