I have rarely read a letter with so many falsehoods as the individual who recently asserted that the Iranians "have lied about working toward a nuke, where their facilities are, how any places, people and pieces of equipment they have working on projects. More importantly, they declare peaceful intentions while also calling for our deaths" ("There's good reason not to trust Iran — or Democrats," April 6). This writer goes on to purport that lying is the exclusive province of Democrats when we've heard that sort of lying before, almost all by Republicans to justify invading Iraq in 2003.
I'm even wondering if this writer knows the difference between Iran and Iraq, since there is only a consonant of difference and the aforementioned quote is what we were told as a justification to invade Iraq.
But I'm sure he doesn't know that for the last 16 months Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium, agreed to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, stopped construction on its heavy-water nuclear reactor and acknowledged tacitly that the lion's share of economic sanctions would remain in place until a final agreement was done. There is no question that Iran has abided by that deal for the last 16 months. The sanctions are what brought Iran to the table, and releasing Iran from its obligations under the Kerry-Zarif deal would not only put the ayatollahs in charge but would exhaust the patience of Europeans who would have no further motivation for continuing their sanctions against Iran. Which would render our stand-alone sanctions toothless.
Paul R. Schlitz Jr., Baltimore