Rubio: Iran deal is ‘exhibit in presidential library’ for Obama

Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), a Republican presidential candidate, predicted Wednesday that an international accord over Iran’s nuclear program would pave its way to a nuclear weapon.

“This is an issue that has longstanding consequences,” Rubio said during an interview on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

{mosads}“If Iran becomes a nuclear weapons power, as I anticipate they will, over the next 10 years, everyone who supported it or voted for it or allowed it to go forward will have to answer to history for that, including many of my Democratic colleagues and most certainly this president,” he said. 

Rubio on Wednesday reiterated that Obama was pushing to sell a nuclear deal with Iran to cement his presidential legacy. Obama has made the issue a top priority in his second term.

“Here’s the broader point that this president fails to make, and I think we need to understand: For him, this whole deal, you know what it is? It is an exhibit in his presidential library,” Rubio said on Fox News.

“That’s what he wants to be able to do, is say, ‘This is what I’ve achieved, peace in our time, this big deal with Iran,’” Rubio added.  

Rubio is among a chorus of Republicans blasting the agreement announced Tuesday by President Obama, who has gone on a blitz to secure support for the accord from a deeply skeptical Congress.

Lawmakers have 60 days to review the deal lifting sanctions in exchange for new limits on Tehran’s nuclear program. The deal is between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain.

Obama defended the according in an interview Tuesday with The New York Times, acknowledging Iran could use its financial benefit from economic sanctions relief to further sponsor terrorism in the region.

“That is a possibility, and we are going to have to systematically guard against that and work with our allies — the gulf countries, Israel — to stop the work that they are doing outside of the nuclear program,” Obama said. “But the central premise here is that if they got a nuclear weapon, that would be different, and on that score, we have achieved our objective.”

“The Israelis and the Gulf countries are not very happy with this deal precisely for this reason,” Rubio countered on Fox News. 

Rubio also criticized press coverage of the accord.

“Some of it’s been glowing, as some sort of historic deal. It’s ridiculous,” Rubio said. “A third-rate autocracy has now been given equality with a world power, the United States of America.”