Former Secretary of State John Kerry tried to defend his catastrophic Iran nuclear deal on CNN Tuesday after successful U.S. and Israeli strikes destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend — and critics slammed the once-failed Democratic presidential candidate.
Kerry appeared on CNN with host Christiane Amanpour to condemn the strategic strikes ordered by President Donald Trump that targeted Iran’s nuclear program.
Kerry complained that “there’s no military solution to this” and said that continued military action would empower Iran’s hardliners — despite his own deal delivering Iran to the very doorstep of obtaining nuclear bombs.
“You cannot bomb away the memory of how to make a bomb. You can’t bomb away the knowledge that they have developed. You can’t bomb away, you know, the broad array of technicians who’ve been working on this for years who will go back to work if that’s the mission they’re given by the leadership of the country,” Kerry said during the interview.
Kerry claimed Trump’s strikes would shift “more power goes to the worst defenders within Iran, the IRGC. And that’s not good for anybody.”
Of course, critics pointed to Kerry’s disastrous 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as the reason Iran came so close to nuclear weapons capability in the first place.
Newly released FBI communications from 2015 and 2016 also revealed how Kerry “personally told DOJ officials that they were to stand down on an arrest” of Iranian terrorists while negotiating the nuclear deal.
Whistleblower disclosures released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-I.A., showed the Obama administration “systematically derailed” FBI investigations into Iranian operatives and created “a shadow amnesty program that protected scores of additional Iranian criminals.”
The documents revealed Kerry and the State Department abandoned “dozens of Iran-related investigations” to secure the disastrous nuclear agreement, which ended up advancing the Iranian nuke program.
“Kerry and the State Department sold out the safety of Americans and our allies when they provided $1.7 billion in cash to Iran which, unsurprisingly, Iran used to continue development of their weapons programs and to better equip and fund their proxies,” the whistleblowers stated.
The JCPOA, which Kerry negotiated as Obama’s chief diplomat, allowed Iran to enrich uranium for the first time since previous administrations from both parties had opposed Iranian enrichment. Before the Obama administration’s disastrous deal, Democratic and Republican presidents, as well as European allies, strongly opposed letting Iran enrich uranium because the process can very easily be weaponized.
Kerry defended Iran’s nuclear ambitions in 2009, when he argued as a senator that the radical Islamic dictatorship had the right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In 2011, Kerry informed Iran through Oman that the United States would acknowledge Iran’s enrichment rights at the start of new nuclear talks, according to The New York Times.
Kerry was even accused of illegally violating the Hatch Act during Trump’s first term to continue negotiating on Iran’s behalf.
The deal Kerry negotiated ultimately emboldened Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Iran extensively violated the agreement, and under former President Joe Biden, the regime massively expanded its uranium enrichment program. Iran enriched uranium to 60 percent purity for the first time in April 2021, just below weapons-grade levels with no peaceful applications.
By February 2025, Iran could enrich enough uranium to construct one nuclear weapon in less than a week and fuel 14 nuclear weapons in about four months, according to the Institute for Science and International Security.
During his CNN appearance, Kerry admitted to Iran’s dangerous progress.
“There was a rather alarming report by the IAEA to the effect that they had about 60 percent level of enrichment, and they had increased their level, you know, of their amount of enriched material available to be able to make a bomb,” he said.
Despite this admission, Kerry defended his approach and criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA in 2018.
“This is the danger of having pulled out of the agreement, just pulled out. And the IAEA said at the time, the agreement was working, Iran was living up to that agreement,” Kerry claimed.
Kerry revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has for years been seeking to bomb Iran” and had asked the Obama administration for permission to strike Iranian nuclear facilities — a bold risk Obama refused to take.
“He came to the Obama administration and asked, he subsequently tried to persuade other presidents. And it didn’t until now become a reality,” Kerry said.
Critics have noted that Kerry’s appeasement strategy directly enabled Iran’s current nuclear capabilities. The regime used the sanctions relief and $1.7 billion cash payment from the nuclear deal to fund proxy groups and accelerate weapons development.
The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel was partially funded through resources Iran gained from Kerry’s diplomatic concessions.
Trump withdrew the United States from what he called “the worst deal ever” in 2018, but the damage from Kerry’s negotiations had already been done.
Iran’s nuclear program advanced significantly during the Biden administration, bringing the regime to the brink of weapons capability before this weekend’s strikes set back their timeline.