"In the last few weeks, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog revealed that Iran is hindering an investigation into a secret nuclear facility where uranium has been detected. Its proxies in Lebanon attacked Israel.
And the Iranian military committed an act of war by launching cruise missiles at Saudi Arabia - taking out 5% of the world's oil production overnight in an attempt to harm our economy and thwart President Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against its regime...
There's no doubt that the catastrophic Obama-Iran nuclear deal, which flooded the Iranian regime with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and sanctions relief, directly contributed to the recent attacks.
The deal didn't just provide Iran with resources it poured into its military; it also created an incentive for the international community to ignore Iranian aggression for the sake of preserving the deal, emboldening the Iranians to launch exactly these sorts of attacks...
The problem is the structure of the deal itself, which was locked in by UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2231. Over the next few years, this resolution requires the permanent termination of UN restrictions on Iran's arms trade, ballistic-missile development, uranium enrichment and plutonium-related work. These are the infamous 'sunset clauses' built into the deal that lift all the UN's nuclear and even non-nuclear restrictions on Iran.
In other words, without action, UNSCR 2231 will soon bulldoze what few speed bumps remain at the international level to slow down the full development and deployment of Iran's nuclear program and aggression. That was the price Iran demanded when the Obama-Iran nuclear deal was signed - and the Obama administration was all too willing to comply.
There is, however, a way to reverse course, prevent international pressure from evaporating forever and restore the restrictions lifted by the deal: the so-called snapback mechanism, which allows any of the original parties of the deal, in effect, to reverse the resolution.
Next week would be an appropriate time for the Trump administration to invoke that provision. After all, Iran's own admission that it has begun nuclear-related work that violates the deal gives Washington just cause for such a move...
Enough is enough. The Iranian regime openly threatens 'all-out war' and seeks weapons that could incinerate American cities with a single flash of light. The nuclear deal legalized Iran's nuclear program and lifted international sanctions against its aggression. It's time to tear up that deal once and for all."