Chanel Rion – OAN Chief White House Correspondent
UPDATED 2:12 PM PT – Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Twenty years ago this week, from the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., the National Council for Resistance for Iran (NCRI-US) made public a groundbreaking discovery; Iran was developing a secret nuclear program.
Dubbed the “Natanz Revelation,” NCRI had warned the world of Iran’s nuclear aspirations since 1991 based on their ground intelligence gathering operations.
It wasn’t until 2002 the group was able to produce hard evidence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility. NCRI’s discovery led the world’s nuclear regulation agency, the IAEA, to demand access and initiate an investigation.
Twenty years later, NCRI hosted a panel discussion from the Willard Hotel Wednesday at a time when the Biden Administration has lost its negotiation edge completely in the Iran nuclear talks from Vienna.
20 years later…@NCRIUS reflects on the two decades since they had uncovered to the world Iran’s secret nuclear program from the Willard Hotel in Washington.
Resistance continues.
Amb. Bolton on reviving the JCPOA: “time is always on the side of the proliferator” @OANN pic.twitter.com/3rvKsbpNr2
— Chanel Rion OAN (@ChanelRion) August 17, 2022
Former Ambassador and estranged Trump NSA John Bolton was a panelist and answered OAN’s questions about the state of our current negotiations and the backdoor role Russia has been playing.
Bolton said the Biden Administration and its current negotiating team was at a disadvantage from the start. Iran has refused to sit down in the same room with US officials to reinstate Obama’s 2015 deal (JCPOA) and insists on using European middlemen to discuss the terms of the latest Iran nuclear deal. Bolton pointed out – from a negotiating standpoint, that Biden’s team agreed to Iran’s bullying terms of negotiation is itself a devastating message: that America is not willing or able to hold its ground.
“Time,” Bolton argued, “is always on the side of the proliferators.”
Former Democratic and Independent Senator from Connecticut Joseph Lieberman also told OAN the US needs to walk away from the negotiating table. The Senator was also clear that the threat of war needs to be clearly established if any progress is to be made with stopping Iran’s nuclear proliferation.
A proliferation measured by the Biden Administration in “weeks not months.”
The latest reporting from the Iran Talks in Vienna indicate the Iranians continuing to make broad demands of the US. Including lifting sanctions on terrorist groups and provisions ensuring that if a deal were to be made with the Biden Administration, penalties would be imposed should a future administration walk away – as President Trump had previously.
Bolton tells OAN – such an agreement if made by the Biden Administration would be close to if not actual treason.
Retired General Chuck Wald, former Deputy Commander of US European Command was also on the NCRI panel. Wald tells OAN Biden’s negotiating team is agreeing to one bad deal after another and in particular, the Iranian demand to impose a penalty on any future administration that decides to back out of the deal is not in the interests of America or the world:
“It’s almost a blackmail by the Iranians on any future administration – not good.”
Iranian negotiators this week expressed reservations about the latest iteration of the deal pertaining to economic and sanctions assurances.
Such reservations indicate the deal is likely to extend well beyond the Monday deadline. A scenario the panelists at the NCRI discussion Wednesday seemed to agree was all by design.