Israel lobby seeking to push Washington away from JCPOA: Analyst
Iran has submitted an official letter of complaint to the UN, protesting a recent US Congress vote in favor of extending a sanction law against the Islamic Republic. In the letter addressed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Iranian Ambassador to the UN Gholam-Ali Khoshrou wrote that the Congressional move is contrary to the US commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Scott Rickard, a political analyst and former American intelligence linguist, told Press TV’s Top 5 that the Israel lobby in the United States seeks to push American politicians toward violation of the JCPOA.
Rickard said there are “tremendous amounts of Zionist influence” on the United States to ignore its obligations under the nuclear deal.
“Just today there was a report in the Washington Post by Joseph Lieberman, a former member of the Senate, who is backing a tremendous push by the Zionist and pro-Israel lobbies in the US to not only continue sanctions but also go even further with tremendous amounts of efforts to not only renegotiate the deal but also to put tremendous pressure on Iran,” the former linguist said.
Referring to the impact of the Israel lobby on US President-elect Donald Trump, he said, “When Trump comes into office, the rhetoric will be ratcheted up,” because “the types of influences that Trump has in his cabinet [shows] the Zionist influence is just so powerful” that he will not be an advocate of the nuclear deal.
According to Rickard, the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) “is a true violation in clear spirit of the JCPOA. This is just a tremendous pullback of diplomacy by the American Senate and sadly [President] Barack Obama will follow suit, because it was unanimously, actually, put forth, 99-0 voted for the extension of the Iran Sanctions Act.”
“These economic sanctions are nothing more than an act of war,” he said, adding that Iran should take steps to put pressure on the US to abide by its commitments under the nuclear agreement.
Iran and the P5+1 group, the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, agreed on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July 2015.
Under the deal, Tehran agreed to limit some aspects of its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of all the nuclear-related sanctions.
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