Republican Candidates Express Strong Opposition to Iran Deal

Updated, 11:51 a.m. | If there were any questions about where the 2016 crop of Republican presidential candidates stood on a nuclear deal with Iran, they were laid to rest on Tuesday after the agreement was announced.

Statements from White House hopefuls warned of nuclear chaos in the Middle East, criticism of President Obama’s abilities as a negotiator, and calls on Congress to stop the deal in its tracks.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, expressed the most dire warnings about the deal: “This is a terrible deal. It will make everything worse and I live in fear that we have set in motion a decade of chaos.”

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, suggested that it would be up to Mr. Obama’s successor to overturn the deal.

“It will then be left to the next president to return us to a position of American strength and reimpose sanctions on this despicable regime until it is truly willing to abandon its nuclear ambitions and is no longer a threat to international security,” Mr. Rubio said.

Carly Fiorina, a Republican and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, said that Iran could not be trusted based on their leaders’ previous actions:

“Iran has demonstrated bad behavior for 30 years,” she said. “We know they have been trying to cheat on this deal. We know they have been funding proxies with the strategic objective of destabilizing the region.”

Gov. Chris Christie, Republican of New Jersey, said he feared for Israel’s security and called on Congress to block the Obama administration from moving forward on the matter:

“The deal threatens Israel, it threatens the United States, and it turns 70 years of nuclear policy on its head,” Mr. Christie said. “I urge Republicans and Democrats in Congress to put aside politics and act in the national interest. Vote to disapprove this deal in numbers that will override the president’s threatened veto.”

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who announced on Monday that he is running for president on the Republican side, also expressed concern about Israel’s safety and said that the deal would be remembered as one of America’s worst diplomatic failures.

“The deal rewards the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism with a massive financial windfall, which Iran will use to further threaten our interests and key allies, especially Israel,” Mr. Walker said.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas criticized Mr. Obama for enriching a brutal regime and highlighted Iran’s human rights violations:

“In his remarks this morning, the president glossed over the truth about Iran’s world-leading state-sponsorship of terrorism that is violently destabilizing the region, and would grow more deadly should the Iranians get a nuclear bomb,” Mr. Cruz said. “He failed to mention American citizens, Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati, and Jason Rezaian, who continue to languish in Iranian prisons, or Robert Levinson, who is still unaccounted for.”

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida offered a detailed critique of the agreement and concluded that it is a failure because it only delays Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He called the deal dangerous and shortsighted:

“This isn’t diplomacy – it is appeasement,” Mr. Bush said.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton called the agreement “an important step” but also expressed concern about Iran’s bad behavior in other areas. She called Iran the largest state sponsor of terrorism and said that “relentless” enforcement of the agreement is necessary.

“I think this is an important step that puts the lid on Iran’s nuclear programs,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It will enable us to turn our attention, as it must, to do what we can with other partners in the region and beyond to try to prevent and contain Iran’s other bad actions.”

Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent running for the Democratic nomination, was more positive about the agreement, congratulating Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry for their achievement.

“This is a victory for diplomacy over saber-rattling and could keep the United States from being drawn into another never-ending war in the Middle East,” Mr. Sanders said.