NYT’s Nicholas Kristof Slams Trump For Iran Deal Exit: It Wasn’t ‘Foreign Policy, It Was Vandalism’
Following President Donald Trump‘s announcement that the U.S. would be pulled out of the Iran deal, New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof called it “vandalism.”
Speaking out against the decision announced Tuesday afternoon, Kristof said it was void of any reasoning and reminded him of the time leading up to the Iraq War.
“What we heard was not foreign policy, it was vandalism,” he told MSNBC’s Katy Tur. “There was no coherent argument against the deal as such. There was a misstatement of its elements, and I say it’s vandalism because the essential nature of it was to dismantle something that President Obama had done. But there was no reasoned argument here, there was a misstatement of its elements.”
Kristof has openly supported remaining in the deal in his writing for The Times, acknowledging it as an “imperfect compromise” but stating “the required inspections program is still among the most intrusive ever.”
Reacting to today’s news, Kristof says of all the options from which Trump could have chosen, this was the wrong one.
and it was also striking that there was a range of options that President Trump could have taken, vis-a-vis the sanctions, which indeed will take some time to reimpose, and so there’s been hope in European capitals that he would take a more moderate approach, create another negotiating space, and in fact, he, as we just heard, took a really tough line.
Discussing the move, Kristof explained “there’s been hope in European capitals that he would take a more moderate approach, create another negotiating space” but that the president and “took a really tough line,” and one that doesn’t look like it will change.
“There was no sense that there is room for further negotiation,” Kristof said. “In fact, it rather reminded me, in the worst way of the run-up to the Iraq War that kind of heated rhetoric that we heard then. I don’t think we’re on the verge of a new conflict, but I think we’re setting in motion today a process that could well lead to conflict down the road.”
Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.
[Image via screengrab]
