Washington, DC – J Street Senior Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Ilan Goldenberg issued the following statement:
“Eight years ago today, President Donald Trump made the ill-fated decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear agreement. At the time, Iran possessed a small stockpile of 3.67% low-enriched uranium – not even enough for one nuclear weapon – and operated under the most heavily monitored and constrained nuclear inspections regime in the world.
Today, Iran possesses enough 60% highly enriched uranium that, if further enriched, could fuel approximately ten nuclear weapons.
Had the United States remained in the agreement, Iran’s nuclear program would likely still be severely restricted today, while the U.S. and its partners could have pursued follow-on negotiations to extend provisions of the JCPOA and address other critical concerns, including Iran’s missile program and its support for armed proxies. Instead, the Trump Administration chose a different path – one that has produced repeated cycles of escalation and conflict at enormous human, strategic and economic cost.
The most egregious recent example has been the Trump Administration’s poorly conceived war with Iran – launched without congressional authorization and with no credible strategy for what would follow. The results have been disastrous for American interests, for U.S. allies and for the people of the region. Thousands have been killed across Israel, Lebanon, Iran and the Gulf states. 13 American servicemembers have lost their lives. Iran’s nuclear program has not been meaningfully set back. Nor has this conflict succeeded in ending Iran’s missile program or its support for regional proxies.
Instead, Iran has gained significant leverage through its ability to threaten global shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, contributing to a global energy crisis with rising oil prices and higher costs for consumers. The conflict has also depleted critical American weapons stockpiles needed for other strategic priorities, particularly deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, while creating unprecedented strains on America’s relationships with European allies.
Now, the Trump Administration has returned to negotiations on a memorandum of understanding that would merely represent a first step back toward the type of agreement Trump abandoned in 2018. If the Administration reaches a sensible diplomatic arrangement that effectively constrains Iran’s nuclear program, it should receive bipartisan support.
But we should also be clear-eyed about how unnecessary this entire crisis was. Neither the withdrawal from the JCPOA nor the disastrous war that followed made the United States, Israel or anyone in the Middle East safer.
Diplomacy was working. Abandoning it was a historic strategic mistake.”