Excerpt
SUMMARY: Gary Samore helped establish the advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran in 2008, before serious negotiations began over the nation's nuclear program. When the nuclear deal was signed last month, the group offered a near-unanimous opposition to the pact. But Samore disagreed; satisfied with the agreement, he stepped down as the group's president. He joins Hari Sreenivasan for a conversation.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Gary Samore helped establish the advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran in 2008, before serious negotiations had begun over Iran’s nuclear program. The goal? Strengthen sanctions against Tehran in the face of what Samore and others believed was a clandestine nuclear program.
From 2009 to 2013, Samore served as President Obama’s White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, while serious talks between the so-called P5-plus-one and Iran were under way.
After leaving the White House, Samore went to the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. When the nuclear deal was signed with Iran last month, there was near-unanimous opposition to the pact from Samore’s fellow members of the anti-Iran-nuclear advocacy group. It is resuming a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign denouncing the deal.
But Samore’s judgment was different. He was satisfied with the Iran agreement, and he has now stepped down as the group’s president.
On Monday, former Connecticut Democratic and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman, a decided opponent of the Iran deal, was named as the chairman of United Against a Nuclear Iran organization.
And Gary Samore joins me now.
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