WASHINGTON - The American Jewish Committee (AJC) sent a letter to Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to express concerns about the prospect of restoring the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.
The organization’s CEO, David Harris, noted in his letter that Blinken stated in the past that the Administration’s objective in reentering negotiations with Iran “was to produce a “longer and stronger” agreement, implying recognition of the unfulfilled aspirations of the 2015 nuclear deal.”
He wrote that AJC opposed the original JCPOA. “Much of what we feared in 2015 has come true,” Harris continued. “In the six-plus years since the deal was implemented, Iran’s regional behavior has crossed one red line after another, with periodic missile and drone attacks by Iran and its proxies on US, Israeli, and GCC targets. Its missile program has advanced.”
Following the US withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, Iran “has leaped ahead in the deployment of sophisticated centrifuges and the stockpiling of near-weapons-grade fissile material.”
“It is AJC’s earnest hope that the process underway in Vienna since last spring will yield the agreement you set as your goal,” Harris wrote.
“If, on the other hand, the final result in Vienna is a return to essentially the same inadequate 2015 package, which replenishes Iranian coffers and leaves our regional allies exposed to escalating conventional threats, we will be left to wonder on what basis such an agreement advances regional and global security.”