Last week, the so-called fact-checking website PolitiFact website gave Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) a “false” rating for claiming that President Barack Obama had promised to “dismantle Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for dismantling the sanctions.” An analysis of Obama’s own statements, and the timeline of negotiations, proves that Cotton was telling the truth, and PolitiFact, through sloppy research, was not.
There is also ample evidence that leading Democrats were promising to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, long after negotiations had started. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), the third-highest ranking member of the Senate Democratic caucus, made an explicit promise to that effect at a gala dinner for a Jewish charity in December 2013–after an interim deal was agreed: “And I want to assure you that together, Democrats and Republicans are gonna work to see that we don’t let up on these sanctions, as this agreement did, until Iran gives up not only all nuclear weapons, but all nuclear weapon capability, all enriched uranium, all the centrifuges, and all the heavy water reactors at Arak.”
Members of Congress, as well as members of the public, could be forgiven for believing what Schumer was promising–that the White House would hold out for dismantling Iran’s entire, illegal nuclear program. Only the Arak plant is to be replaced. All other promises were broken.