Jeb Bush told a Nevada audience on Friday that he would not repeal President Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement on day one.
Speaking in Carson City, the former Florida governor reiterated his opposition to the deal, which will ease economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for a decade of limitations to it’s nuclear program.
But Mr. Bush stopped short of promising he would dismantle the deal and denounced other Republicans who have promised to do so, calling them panderers, Politico reported.
“At 12:01 on January, whatever it is, 19th [2017], I will probably have a confirmed secretary of state; I will not have a confirmed national security team in place; I will not have consulted with our allies. I will not have had the intelligence briefings to have made a decision,” Mr. Bush said, Politico reported. “If you’re running for president, I think it’s important to be mature and thoughtful about this.”
Mr. Bush said he would never have negotiated with Iran in the first place and told the crowd of roughly 100 people at the town hall that he doesn’t discredit Mr. Obama for doing so, but for not negotiating harder.
“I’m deeply worried about this agreement because I think it’s going to create the possibility of nuclear proliferation in the region and a much more unstable Middle East that will impact us,” he said, Politico reported.
After holding a moment of silence for the Marines killed in a shooting Thursday at a recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Mr. Bush slammed Mr. Obama for a foreign policy approach that has left the Middle East in tatters and had led to incidents of domestic terrorism like this week’s shooting.
“We’re living in times that are quite perilous,” Mr. Bush said, Politico reported. “Now we see what happens when we pull back. These threats spread over the Internet all around the world including our own country. I, for one, we believe we need to reengage with the rest of the world, fight barbaric Islamic terrorism in the Middle East and also do what we need to do to protect the homeland, using all the tools available to make it so, protecting civil liberties along the way but make sure, make sure that we keep this country safe.”
FBI officials have yet to confirm if the accused 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born gunman had any ties to Islamic terrorist organizations.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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