Jeb Bush: Obama has “legitimized” Iran regime that has killed U.S. soldiers
Jeb Bush: Obama has “legitimized” Iran regime that has killed U.S. soldiers
SAN FRANCISCO – Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said Thursday that President Obama’s deal with the Iranian government was reached prematurely, and that the sanctions regime that was in place could have been sustained longer to try to force more concessions from Tehran.
“You could have kept the pressure on through meaningful sanctions,” Bush said during an interview with Yahoo News. “The sanctions that have been in existence now for a pretty long time were enhanced in the last five years, and had they been kept - with the lower energy prices that we were seeing – I think Iran eventually would have negotiated to where the United States wanted them to be.”
“If they wanted to create a civilian nuclear program, fine. If they want to build, if they want to become a nuclear threshold state, no. And now they are, and we’ve legitimized them,” Bush said.
He added that he was outraged by the work of the Iranian government to arm and fund attacks on American troops in Iraq.
“We also have a situation that is deeply troubling to me, which is there’s blood on their hands with American military men and women in Iraq,” Bush said. “And to legitimize a regime that killed hundreds of American soldiers without any consequence, without any recognition that that’s something that should be troubling, is deeply disturbing to me.”
Watch Jeb Bush’s full interview with Yahoo News now
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