Predictable Pete

At Rep. Peter DeFazio’s most recent Eugene town hall, speaking on the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), he said, “Unfortunately Trump has voided that agreement and imposed even more onerous sanctions than before. I have opposed that and the House has opposed that.”

Trump formally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 by imposing sanctions. In 2017 both DeFazio and the House voted for the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which “directs the President to impose sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile or weapons of mass destruction programs.”

Article 26 of the JCPOA states that the President and the Congress, will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions. Iran has stated that it will treat such… an imposition of new nuclear-related sanctions, as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA.”

It seems that rather than opposing Trump’s disastrous move, DeFazio voted to direct him to do it. A look through DeFazio’s record reveals more of the same. 

In 1990, 13 years before voting against the Iraq War, DeFazio voted for sanctions against Iraq. In 1996 Madeleine Albright claimed “the price is worth it” when responding to claims that more than 500,000 children had died from the sanctions. Two years later DeFazio voted “to remove the Saddam Hussein regime from power,” aka regime change in Iraq.

DeFazio calls himself a “consistent opponent of war” in his recent letter to the editor. Honest analysis of his foreign policy record might conclude him to be predictable, but certainly not consistent.

Colin Moran

Eugene