CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert challenged Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday to prove he had no sold out U.S. interests to Iran in the controversial nuclear deal settled by the Obama administration.
“Tell me, if I’m someone who thinks you’ve capitulated like Neville Chamberlain, why that’s wrong,” Colbert said. Chamberlain is the British prime minister who famously promised “peace in our time” after trying to appease Hitler’s Germany by giving a ceding a section of Czechoslovakia to the Third Reich.
Kerry said the comparison would be wrong because Chamberlain “relied on words, there was no agreement, he simply listened to what Hitler said.”
Colbert pushed back. “He held up a piece of paper and said, I bring us peace in our time.”
“Well, yeah, but there was no verification, nothing certain,” Kerry said. He then rattled off a list of checks the United Nations has placed on the agreement, such as requiring that Iran reduce its stockpiles of materials that could be used to create nuclear weapons. He said Iran will have to complete certain requirements before economic sanctions are lifted by the U.S.
Republicans and other critics of the Iran deal say that it gives Iranians too much control over inspections and that the country’s government is likely to go back on the deal once it has developed enough of its nuclear program.
