CIA Director John Brennan warned U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that tearing up the nuclear deal would be “the height of folly.” In an interview with the BBC, Brennan said that backing out of an agreement made by a previous administration would be unprecedented. During the U.S. presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the deal. “My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran,” he said in March 2016. Trump argued that the deal was “catastrophic for America, for Israel and for the whole of the Middle East.”
The following is an excerpt from Brennan’s BBC interview.
CIA Director John Brennan
“I think it would be disastrous [tearing up the nuclear deal], it really would. First of all, for one administration to tear up an agreement that a previous administration made would be almost unprecedented. And then it could lead to a weapons program inside of Iran that could lead other states in the region to embark on their own programs, so I think it would be the height of folly if the next administration were to tear up that agreement.”