Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Saturday that he believes President Barack Obama’s pushing of negotiations with Iran is “extremely reckless” and that anyone who believes Iran can be trusted with a nuclear capability is “stupid.”
Following his speech at a conference in Berlin organized by Iranian exiles, Giuliani told the Associated Press, "What he [Obama] is doing with Iran right now is extremely reckless and it's going to create an Iranian-controlled northern Middle East."
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani claps at the start of a day-long conference on human rights organized by the Iranian exile opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2015. (AP Photo/Frank Jordans)
The former mayor pointed to Iranian influence in Syria and Iraq, which he said could spur a dangerous reaction from Saudi Arabia.
During his speech to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Giuliani said if the Obama administration didn’t take a stronger position on Iran, it risked appeasing an “insane” regime.
The AP reported:
Giuliani claimed that the government in Tehran, which is seeking to reach a deal with world powers to lift crippling international sanctions, "has proven to us that it shouldn't be trusted with any kind of nuclear capacity."Anyone who thought otherwise was "stupid" or risking the kind of appeasement that Britain tried with Nazi Germany in 1938, he said.
Giuliani last month suggested Obama was “a moron” for negotiating with Iran which he likened to “playing poker with a guy who cheated you twice before.”
“You know who does that? A moron. An agreement with Iran with regard to nuclear power should be very simple. Iran should not be allowed to have any form of nuclear power,” Giuliani said on Feb. 13. "This is like playing poker with a guy who cheated you twice before. You know who does that? A moron. An agreement with Iran with regard to nuclear power should be very simple. Iran should not be allowed to have any form of nuclear power."
Secretary of State John Kerry has been flying over the past week between Europe and the Middle East, meeting with Iranian negotiators and in parallel trying to allay the concerns of American Persian Gulf allies who fear a future Iranian nuclear weapons capability will threaten their security.
The AP noted that the National Council of Resistance of Iran is associated with the People's Mujahedin of Iran, an Iranian armed resistance group which in 2012 was taken off the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
