Mitt Romney: Obama Should Say 'No Deal' To Iran

Are there any fans of President Obama's foreign policy record — other than our nation's adversaries, that is? Democrats have been noticeably quiet on the subject; Republicans have been appropriately brutal. But the president could silence critics like me and even qualify for a Profile in Courage Award by doing the right thing on Iran: Walk away from a flimsy nuclear agreement.

I say courage because signing an agreement — any agreement — would undoubtedly be a political home run. The news media would repeatedly feature the signing ceremony. The coverage would rehearse the long and tortured history between our two countries and exalt at the dawn of a new era. The Iranian pooh-bahs would appear tame and responsible. The president would look, well, presidential.An agreement would also boost the prospects for Hillary Clinton: achievement by association.

Walking away from all that would be courageous. It would also be right.

Agreements with tyrants and fanatics have very short shelf lives. Case in point, our agreements with North Korea, inked by presidents from both political parties. In 1985, North Korea acceded to the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and in 1991, it signed the South-North Joint Declaration on Denuclearization. In 1993, however, the CIA determined that North Korea had likely already separated enough fissile material for one to two nuclear bombs. Then in 1994, North Korea signed the Agreed Framework to dismantle its nuclear capabilities in exchange for gifts of fuel oil, low-grade reactors and normalized diplomatic relations. In 2002, North Korea admitted to a secret program to enrich uranium, reopened a previously shuttered reactor, and expelled the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from the country. In 2003, North Korea officially withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Today, North Korea not only boasts nuclear weaponry and long-range missiles, it also exports its technology to some of the world's worst actors.

The agreements with North Korea didn't work. And the North Korea agreements looked tougher than what we are hearing about from the Kerry negotiations: The North Korea deal required complete dismantling of the country's enrichment capabilities and had no explicit expiration date. A soft nuclear agreement with a rogue state? Fool us twice, shame on us.

Read the rest of the op-ed HERE.

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