Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a prospective candidate for the White House in 2016, vows his first act in office would be to undo any nuclear deal with Iran— even in America's allies didn't want to reimpose sanctions.
In an interview with radio host Charlie Sykes, Walker doubled-down
on his previous promise to "disown" any agreement from the Obama administration effort to get a deal to thwart Iran's nuclear proliferation.
"If I ultimately choose to run, and if I’m honored to be elected by the people of this country, I will pull back on that on January 20, 2017, because the last thing — not just for the region but for this world — we need is a nuclear-armed Iran," Walker told Sykes, declaring "absolutely" that he'd blow up the deal even if allies balked.
Story continues below audio.
"It leaves not only problems for Israel, because they want to annihilate Israel, it leaves the problems in the sense that the Saudis, the Jordanians and others are gonna want to have access to their own nuclear weapons...."
"Then you've got massive problems," he adds. "America needs to re-establish leadership in the world."
On Thursday, the United States, Iran and five other world powers said they had agreed on an outline of limits on Iran's nuclear program that would prevent it from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief.
The announcement begins another three months of more detailed negotiations during which the nations will try to reach a comprehensive final accord to achieve the limits.
Republicans are skeptical.
"He's going to get a deal, and he's going to bring it back to Congress, and he is going to ask for their consent through advise and consent," former Massachusetts Sen.
Scott Brown says.
"And he will say, 'hey, by the way, it's not a perfect deal. But it's the best we could do. And if you don't approve it, then it's up to you, because we may escalate our military efforts, we may get in more conflict and, God forbid, we may even have a war with Iran. And if that happens, GOP, that's on you, not me.' "
But Peter Juul, a Mideast analyst for the Center for American Progress tells
The Washington Post that Walker's vow would have dire consequences.
"The big questions would be, how would Europeans and Iranians react? It’s hard to believe that the Iranians would stick to their end of the deal," he tells The Post.
"That would leave Iran open to take their nuclear program as far as they want."
"The Europeans would probably try to keep their portion of the deal in place and try to salvage it," Juul says. "This would place the burden of having blown up the deal on us....
"You’d be irreparably damaging our transatlantic relationships for however long Scott Walker were in office."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.