Boehner: I’d applaud Obama for leaving Iran talks

CBS News, 12 July 2015
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he would applaud President Obama for walking away from talks over Iran’s nuclear program because “no deal is better than a bad deal.”
“From everything that’s leaked from these negotiations, the administration’s backed away from almost all of the guidelines that they set up for themselves. And I don’t want to see a bad deal. And so if, in fact, there’s no agreement, the sanctions are gonna go back in place,” Boehner said in an interview with “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson that aired Sunday.
The talks have dragged nearly two weeks beyond the initial June 30 deadline by which six world powers and Iran were supposed to finalize an agreement. A framework agreement reached earlier this year would limit but not entirely eliminate Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a gradual lifting of certain international sanctions. But negotiators are still hung up over a handful of issues, including the scope of access United Nations inspectors will have to nuclear sites and how to handle international sanctions that ban Iran from buying or selling missiles and conventional weapons.
Boehner said the Iranian regime must abandon its efforts to create a nuclear weapon and stop sponsoring terror groups around the world. If those two things don’t happen, he said, “we’ll have a standoff.”
But that option, Boehner added, is “a lot better than legitimizing this rogue regime,” which is what would happen if there is a deal.