President Donald Trump is correct when he sees flaws in the Iran nuclear deal, but that does not mean he should pull the United States out of it, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Monday.
"The president is right to see flaws in it," Johnson, who will meet in Washington with Vice President Mike Pence, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade.
"Look, Iran is behaving badly. Iran has a tendency to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles. We have to push back what Iran is doing in the region. We have to be tougher on Iran. We have to fix the flaws in the deal."
However, he urged Trump to remain in the Obama-era deal, and to work to fix it while leaving it in play.
"The president has a legitimate point," said Johnson. "He set a challenge for the world. We think you can be tougher on Iran, address the concerns of the president and not throw the baby out with the bath water, not junk a deal. As I say plan B does not seem to be to me particularly well-developed at this stage."
Johnson, however, agreed that the deal's sunset clause means that after 2025, Iran can go "forward fast" with its enrichment programs, "which could lead to a nuclear weapon."
"Now [there are] no sanctions to go back on," said Johnson. "We need to find a way of fixing that and the president has been right to call attention to it."
However, if the deal is scrapped, Johnson said, you have to ask what is coming next.
"What if the Iranians rush to a nuclear weapon," he said. "Are we seriously saying that we'll bomb the facilities at Fordow and Natanz? Or we work with what we've got and push back."
Trump is facing a May 12 deadline for deciding whether to pull out of the deal, but Iran had said that it is not talking about reaching a new pact.
"That is the problem, so what you've got to do, you've got to recognize that the heart of the old deal, the existing deal is that it gives Iran some reason to hope that they will have economic benefits in the long run," said Johnson. "Actually, they haven't had much in the last few years."
In return for the benefits, Iran has agreed that it will not equip itself with a nuclear weapon, added Johnson, but if that happens, there will be an "arms race in the Middle East."
"You will have the Saudis wanting one, the Egyptians, the Emirates. . . We don't want to go down that route," said Johnson.
Further, the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran is compliance with the agreement, said Johnson.
"They haven't been rushing for a nuke," he said. "Let me remind you, before the deal was done, they could have had a nuke and they were massively enriching uranium."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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