Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser for two Republican presidents and considered a Washington sage, said he supports the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran and pressed Congress to support it.

Mr. Scowcroft, who worked for Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post’s Sunday edition in which he urged lawmakers not to confuse opposition to the agreement with support for Israel. He also likened the deal to agreements Presidents Richard Nixon made with China and Ronald Reagan made with the Soviet Union.

“If the United States could have handed Iran a ‘take it or leave it’ agreement, the terms doubtless would have been more onerous on Iran,” Mr. Scowcroft wrote. “But negotiated agreements, the only ones that get signed in times of peace, are compromises by definition. It is what President Reagan did with the Soviet Union on arms control; it is what President Nixon did with China.”

Mr. Scowcroft, a retired Air Force three-star general, said members of Congress, who will begin debating the issue in September, should recognize the military capability Israel possesses if Tehran doesn’t act according to the agreement and is forced to respond to defend itself. He said should Congress reject the deal, it would be an “abdication of the United States’ unique role and responsibility” and the U.S. would lose leverage over Iran’s nuclear activities.

“The seeming effort to make the [Iran nuclear deal] the ultimate test of Congress’s commitment to Israel is probably unprecedented in the annals of relations between two vibrant democracies,” Mr. Scowcroft wrote. “Let us be clear: There is no credible alternative were Congress to prevent U.S. participation in the nuclear deal. If we walk away, we walk away alone.”

Separately, presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee appeared on “Fox News Sunday” on the heels of his visit with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Mr. Huckabee, one of the harshest critics of the Iran deal, didn’t discuss specifics of the meeting but said Israelis overwhelmingly oppose the deal. He said members of Congress need to ask themselves: “Do I work for President Obama or do I work for the people who elected me?”


The deal signed earlier this summer would prevent Iran from enriching uranium for nuclear military capabilities in return for the lifting of economic sanctions that would amount to a windfall for Tehran as soon as next year. Despite pointed opposition among many members of Congress, including at least two prominent Senate Democrats, political experts don’t believe there will be enough opposition to override President Barack Obama’s intention to veto any Congressional resolution rejecting the deal.

Mr. Scowcroft in the editorial pointed to the caliber of the people who negotiated the deal and who now support it. “There is no more credible expert on nuclear weapons than Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who led the technical negotiating team,” Mr. Scowcroft wrote. “When he asserts that the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] blocks each of Iran’s pathways to the fissile material necessary to make a nuclear weapon, responsible people listen. Twenty-nine eminent U.S. nuclear scientists have endorsed Moniz’s assertions.”

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

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He also likened the deal to agreements Presidents Richard Nixon made with China and Ronald Reagan made with the Soviet Union.

“Let us be clear: There is no credible alternative were Congress to prevent U.S. participation in the nuclear deal. If we walk away, we walk away alone.”