Rubio and Iran

Larison is unsparing:

It takes special determination to be as comprehensively wrong about something as Rubio has been about diplomacy with Iran over the last few years. Two years ago, Rubio was feigning interest in negotiations while insisting on maximalist conditions that would have made an agreement impossible. Had the U.S. followed his recommendations, there would have been no deal and Iran’s nuclear program would not be under the significant restrictions now imposed upon it. If the U.S. had demanded “zero enrichment” as Rubio wished, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium would not have been shipped out of the country as it has been, but would have remained in Iran’s control and would have continued to expand. A year ago, Rubio was certain that Iran would never abide by any agreement that it made. This month, the IAEA has certified that Iran is in compliance with the agreement, just as it complied with the interim agreement that he also bitterly opposed. Despite his best efforts to tack on irrelevant amendments to the Senate’s oversight legislation to try to sabotage the deal, the deal went forward and has already yielded significant nonproliferation benefits in just its first few months.

Like other Iran hawks, Rubio is reduced to bemoaning non-existent “appeasement” while ignoring the substantial benefits for the U.S. that diplomacy with Iran has already produced.