Bolton: Congress Can’t Stop Iran Deal

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The historic Iranian nuclear deal announced Tuesday would not last beyond the end of President Barack Obama’s presidency if longshot Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina wins election next year, she told the Laura Ingraham Show.

Fiorina told Ingraham on Tuesday that Iran has a long history of cheating on international agreements. She added that Congress cannot block the nuclear pact, so one of the first calls she would make from the Oval Office would be to the supreme leader of Iran.

“I would tell him, ‘I don’t care what my predecessor agreed to, there’s a new deal,’” Fiorina said, vowing to reimpose economic sanctions until Iran grants nuclear inspectors unfetter access.

Fiorina acknowledged it would be an unusual step for a president not to honor a deal negotiated by a predecessor.

“It would be difficult, but it needs to be done,” she said.

Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and GOP presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham also took a hard-line Tuesday on the Laura Ingraham Show.

“The Mideast is on fire. This deal pours gasoline on it,” said Graham of South Carolina.

“This is the death sentence of Israel and ensures nuclear bombs in Iran; this is a lousy deal,” said Graham, known as a foreign-policy hawk in the Senate. “The Mideast is on fire. This deal pours gasoline on it.”

Bolton told Ingraham the deal legitimizes the Iranian regime, which he called the “central banker for terrorism,” and its nuclear program.

Bolton said failure to take aggressive action 15 years ago leaves two undesirable options — allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, setting off a local nuclear arms race in the Middle East, or take military action to knock out the nuclear program.

Bolton and Graham differed on the impact of U.S. sanctions. Graham said blocking access to U.S. markets for companies that do business with Iran would be “no small inconsequential decision to keep … sanctions in place.”

But Bolton said even if Congress could override a certain Obama veto, it would not stop international sanctions from unravelling.

“The most that Congress can do if it’s successful is prevent Obama from lifting U.S. sanctions,” he said.

Bolton said other countries, in response to the agreement, will lift their sanctions. That will leave U.S. policy where it was in 2006, with American sanctions in place but Iran having a much freer hand.

Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, told Ingraham the agreement announced Tuesday contains no commitments by Iran to stop funding terrorism.

“Sadly, we know that Iran continues to shout, ‘Death to America,’” she said.

Fiorina said the deal rewards bad behavior just as Obama’s restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba rewards the Communist island nation’s bad behavior.

“When you continue to reward bad behavior, you get more bad behavior,” she said.

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