Dershowitz: Iran Deal a 'Chamberlain Moment'

Alan Dershowitz

Harvard professor and noted civil rights and international law expert Alan Dershowitz criticized the nuclear deal with Iran sharply on Sunday, saying that it "could become a Chamberlain moment" for President Barack Obama.

"I don't think that this deal was motivated by any anti-Israel sentiment," Dershowitz told Breitbart News. "I think that both President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry believe that the deal is in the best interest of the U.S. and Israel. But I think they're dead wrong. "When you do a risk-benefit analysis, the possibility that this will actually result in ending Iran's nuclear weapons program is probably in the range of 10%, and the risk that it will increase their likelihood of moving quickly toward developing a nuclear weapon is in the 20% to 30% range. The rest is uncertainty.

"I think it was a very bad example of negotiating from weakness rather than strength. The U.S. had Iran where we wanted them, in a much weakened position. And instead of continuing the pressure we sent three messages. 1. Sanctions are over. We are going to eliminate some now--it's only a few billion dollars' worth, but we are going to send a message to China and others that have been dying to so business with Iran that it's OK. And we will never get them back to that point of pressure. 2. I think we effectively took the military option off the table and made it much more difficult for Israel to pursue a military option in the next several months. 3. We gave them a yellow light, at least, if not quite a green one, as to continuing onto certain aspects of developing nuclear weapons--triggering devices and material that could be easily transposed to military use.

"It's no surprise that the Iranians are jumping up in the air celebrating, and American experts are deeply divided as to whether this is a good deal or bad deal. Of course someone like Zbigniew Brzezinski says it's a good deal--he's the perfect litmus test. He's always wrong. If you look back at his history, from the day he became an adviser to Jimmy Carter, I can't think of one decision where he turned out right. Korea, Syria, the Arab Spring, and the Palestinians--he's much worse than a broken clock, which is right twice a day. I challenge anyone to find any major issue of foreign policy on which Brzezinski has been right over past four years. The idea that the Obama administration listened to this man is remarkable to me. Where does this notion that he's a wise man come from? His history is one mistake after the other.

"The model I think the Obama administration is following is the Syria model, where they accidentally backed into a success. But that's not the actual model [here]. The model is North Korea, which a was an utter failure. That's where we are--a bad deal. Not badly motivated, but foolish and naive, and it could be catastrophic in its outcome.

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Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Also on Breitbart Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Sunday he is not happy with "the nuclear deal ... reached between the U.S. and Iran."

Schumer said he was "disappointed by the terms of the agreement between Iran and the P5+1 nations because it does not seem proportional."

He said freezing sanctions just because Iran freezes its nuclear capabilities is not a good deal—that it rewards Iran for doing what they should have done all along. Moreover, he said it was the strength of the sanctions that "brought Iran to the table" to begin with, thus plans to freeze sanctions would be counterproductive.

Schumer said "the dis-proportionality of this agreement [actually] makes it more likely that Democrats and Republicans will join together and pass additional sanctions" when Senators come back together after Thanksgiving.