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Former national security adviser Susan Rice on Thursday bashed the 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by President Trump that kicks off a two-month negotiation period with Tehran.
“This is a jaw-dropping, horrific surrender document complete with hundreds of billions in reparations,” Rice wrote in a Thursday post on social platform X.
“It is the predictable result of incompetent negotiation and the foolhardy strategic catastrophe of starting and pursuing this disastrous war,” she added.
Rice, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the director of the Domestic Policy Council, said the agreement was “the biggest national security blunder in decades.”
Her words ring out in tandem with Republicans and Democrats who have questioned portions of the agreement that would allow Iran to gain access to $300 billion for reconstruction efforts. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters both reported international companies have already committed to backing more than half of the value of the private fund.
“It is not remotely in America’s interest for us to pay to rebuild that capacity that we just took out,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Wednesday.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said, “This will go down as a tremendous foreign policy blunder.”
Former President Obama also criticized the deal prior to the release of its text, noting that Iran’s concessions, including a commitment to not procure a nuclear weapon, don’t differ from the terms agreed to in 2015 through the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
However, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the Trump administration’s efforts to find a resolution with Iran, while threatening to launch future strikes if needed.
“JCPOA came from a bunch of begging and talking. This agreement came after months of bombing and a blockade that was impenetrable. Iran was put in a position where they had to come to the table and undertake this, and what President Trump has been clear about from the beginning, and the War Department is clear about, is Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Full stop. Cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Hegseth told reporters in Brussels at the NATO Defense Ministerial.
“Everybody knows it, and so our military actions and any negotiations will be centered on that, and the president has pointed out that we will be prepared to recommence if underneath the timeline of these talks Iran does not do what it says it’s going to do, just give up nuclear weapons, give up nuclear ambitions, give away their nuclear material, close nuclear facilities, then the War Department is here and prepared to restart if we need to,” he added.
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