Ex-Clinton official calls to oppose Iran deal

A former national co-chair for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid and the brother of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker is urging members of Congress to oppose the nuclear deal with Iran.

J.B. Pritzker is a “lifelong Democrat,” he wrote in an op-ed in The Hill, and he joins “a rapidly expanding list of Democrats across the country” in opposing the deal.

{mosads}“There is room in our party to have opposing views of the Iran deal,” Pritzker wrote. “Democrats on both sides can legitimately reach alternate conclusions based on different interpretations of the facts without questioning their loyalties or their intentions.”

The statement puts Pritzker at odds with both his sister’s administration as well as Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner.

Instead, Pritzker said he feels more aligned with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), whose decision to oppose the deal earlier this month sent a shockwave across Washington.

The deal before Congress “will leave the U.S. with two bad options: accept a nuclear Iran, or take military action,” Pritzker wrote on Thursday. “By legitimizing Iran’s nuclear program, removing the pressure of economic sanctions and allowing it to obtain conventional weapons and ballistic missiles, this agreement makes the prospect for war more likely, not less.”

He warned that the terms of the deal would reduce U.S. leverage against Iran by giving it an immediate injection of billions of dollars in cash in exchange for letting it keep “its advanced nuclear program and the infrastructure of a threshold nuclear state.”

That money will allow Iran to increase its terrorism abroad, he warned, and crack down further on human rights within its own borders.

The comments from Pritzker — who is the co-founder and managing partner of a Chicago-based investment firm, Pritzker Group — echo similar concerns from critics of the agreement in Congress.

Lawmakers are set to vote on whether to block the agreement when they return from the summer recess next month. Only a few Democrats have so far come out in opposition to the deal, increasing the odds that they will either be able to filibuster GOP-led legislation to kill the deal in the Senate, or else bock Congress from overturning President Obama’s veto.