Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice tweeted a short but stinging response to one of the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying groups in the nation after the organization praised the President’s latest speech on Iran.
Rice, who served in the Obama administration, tweeted ‘BS’ to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) praising Donald Trump’s remarks following a speech on Iran, which they said ‘accurately outlined the history and continued dangers of Iran’s aggression.’
During the speech delivered on Thursday, Trump said that Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy agreement was no longer in the US’s national security interest.
Former Security Adviser Susan Rice tweeted ‘BS’ to pro-Israel group AIPAC after they praised the President’s decision to decertify the Iran nuclear deal
The group had said that Donald Trump had ‘accurately outlined the history and continued dangers of Iran’s aggression’ during a speech earlier this week
The deal is designed to stop the Islamic Republic nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief
‘I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification,’ Trump said.
‘We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout,’ he continued.
The Iran nuclear deal, which was struck between Iran and the P5+1 (US, UK, China, Russia, France and Germany) in the summer of 2015, set limits on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear aspirations in exchange for sanctions relief.
The deal was also designed to halt Iranian nuclear proliferation for 10 to 15 years.
The President, however, stopped short of declaring the US’s complete withdraw from the agreement, instead leaving it up to congress to place higher benchmarks for the Iranians to meet in order to avoid future sanctions.
The UK, France and Germany released a joint statement criticizing Trump’s decision, saying that the deal is in ‘our shared national security interest’
Shortly after the speech, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a joint statement that preserving the Iran deal ‘is in our shared national security interest,’ according to The Hill.
‘We encourage the U.S. administration and Congress to consider the implications to the security of the U.S. and its allies before taking any steps that might undermine the [deal], such as re-imposing sanctions on Iran lifted under the agreement,’ they added.
One leader who praised the President, however, was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who described Trump’s decision to decertify the agreement as ‘courageous.’
‘Trump has just created an opportunity to fix this bad deal, to roll back Iran’s aggression and to confront its criminal support of terrorism,’ said the premier, who has long argued that the 2015 accord must be ‘fixed or nixed,’ The Jerusalem Post reported.
Netanyahu was one of the deal’s most vocal opponents before terms were reached in July 2015, going so far as to speak in front of the US Congress without the President Obama’s approval in an effort to stop the deal.
AIPAC is one of the most influential lobbying groups in America, helping advance Israel-American policy decisions in Congress.