Former Marine Corps commandant warns Washington on nuclear Iran

Retired Marine Corps General James Jones, former commandant of the Marine Corps, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and President Obama’s first National Security Advisor, warned Washington of the dangers posed by a nuclear-armed Iranian regime, PR Newswire reported on Friday.
“The threat of an Iranian nuclear program is very serious…there’s no reason to think that if they acquired the [nuclear weapons] capability, they wouldn’t export it to non-state actors like Hezbollah,” he told senior Senate staffers at a forum in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington.
The bipartisan briefing was held a day after Mr. Obama in his annual State of the Union speech threatened to veto any bill Congress passes to increase economic sanctions on Iran. The House has passed a new sanctions bill, and the Senate is developing a veto-proof majority for its own bill.
Also speaking at the briefing was former Ambassador Robert G. Joseph, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security under the G.W. Bush Administration, who cautioned that President Obama’s deal with Iran puts the United States on a “path to failure.”
“We’ve seen this movie over and over, and the ending never changes,” he added, warning that the deal was likely to fall apart and further tarnish America’s reputation among traditional U.S. allies in the Middle East, who fear that a nuclear-armed Iran would further destabilize the region.
Mr. Joseph underscored that the six-month deal, which went into effect in January, fails to require Iran to dismantle its nuclear facilities, which has enriched uranium to near weapons-grade levels.