Under a Trump administration, Iran will never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said on Wednesday.
In a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., Trump criticized the Obama administration for abandoning its commitment to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and for snubbing Israel on numerous occasions.
“We have had a president who dislikes our friends and bows to our enemies, something we have never seen before in the history of our country,” Trump said, reading from a teleprompter. “He negotiated a disastrous deal with Iran and then we watched them ignore the terms even before the ink was dry. Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon — cannot be allowed, remember that, cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”
“Uner a Trump administration, Iran will never, ever by allowed to have that nuclear weapon,” he proclaimed.
Trump also blasted President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for “snubbing” America’s most trusted ally in the Middle East- Israel, whom he called “a force for justice and peace.”
“Israel, our great friend and the one true Democracy in the Middle East, has been snubbed and criticized by an Administration that lacks moral clarity,” Trump said. “Just a few days ago, Vice President Biden again criticized Israel – a force for justice and peace – for acting as an impediment to peace in the region. He has treated Iran with tender love and care and made it a great power in the Middle East – all at the expense of Israel, our other allies in the region and, critically, the United States. We have picked fights with our oldest friends, and now they are starting to look elsewhere for help. Remember that. Not good.”
“All of this is going to change when I am President,” he said. “America is going to be strong again. America is going to be a reliable friend and ally again.”
Ahead of the speech, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign sought to remind voters about Trump’s previous statements. In a memo released on Wednesday, the Clinton campaign stressed, “Nothing he can say can hide the long list of dangerous national security proposals he’s put forward over the course of this campaign. He has used the most reckless rhetoric of any major presidential candidate in modern history.”
But Walid Phares, one of Trump’s advisers on foreign policy, maintained that Trump wants the American people to know “that, despite what we see in the primary cycle, the kind of exchanges, a Trump administration would be very serious on national security, on defense, and on counterterror.”
