U.S. is going too soft on Iran

Mike Khodadost
President Barack Obama said the nuclear deal with Iran builds on the tradition of strong diplomacy that won the Cold War without firing any shots.

The nuclear deal with Iran has already been criticized for leaving much of the Iranian regime’s nuclear infrastructure in place while scurrying to lift sanctions that brought the regime to the negotiating table in the first place.

Last month, a prominent leader of the Iranian opposition, Maryam Rajavi, addressed a crowd of some 100,000 supporters saying that the world would be more peaceful only if the theocratic regime in her home country is overthrown. She also addressed the importance of more decisive Western policies to help the Iranian people establish a democratic, secular and non-nuclear Iran.

A growing number of Western policymakers and officials understand that the Iranian regime cannot be trusted.

The U.S. should have been willing to walk away from the talks in order to press Tehran to make more concessions. Instead, it was Washington that made enormous concessions — including the lifting of an arms and missiles embargo.

Without engaging the Iranian people and their real representatives in the main organized Iranian opposition, the U.S. policy toward Iran will lack the strategic robustness and depth that it so desperately requires.

The alternative to such a bad deal is to keep up pressure on the Iranian regime.

Mike Khodadost

President, Iranian American Cultural Society of Michigan