WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th August, 2020) Outgoing US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said on Tuesday that the United States should continue its maximum pressure campaign against Iran regardless of whether it may reach a new nuclear agreement with that country.
"President [Donald Trump] would like to get to a deal. Whether we have it one or not, this policy that we have in place needs to continue, needs to run like a river," Hook said during an event hosted by the United Against Nuclear Iran think tank. "If we get to a deal, fine, but if we don't, this is the kind of policy [to make] the middle East more peaceful and stable."
In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear agreement with the United States, China, France, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union. The agreement offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange to scaling back its nuclear program and uranium stockpiles.
However, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in May of 2018 and re-imposed sanctions against ran as part of its maximum pressure campaign.
Hope warned he is concerned that Democrats may revisit the nuclear agreement if their presidential candidate Joe Biden defeats Trump in the upcoming presidential election in November.
"The Iran deal... was well intentioned, but it failed to deter Iran and it did not address the problem of Iran's nuclear program. We have put in place enormous leverage for a second term to get a kind of outcome that we are going to need," Hook said.
Hook is leaving the post and will be replaced by Elliott Abrams, who served as Special Representative for Venezuela, and will now hold both positions. Abrams was one of the key architects of the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq. He is best known for his involvement in the 1987 Iran-Contra scandal, which led to his conviction in 1991 on two counts of unlawfully withholding information from Congress. Abrams was later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.
