Former Marine Jim Webb came out against the Obama Adminstration's controversial nuclear deal with Iran during CNN's Democratic Party debate Tuesday evening.
"I believe the signal that we sent to the region when the Iran nuclear deal was concluded was that we are accepting Iran's greater position in this very important balance of power amoung our greatest ally, Israel, and the Sunnis represented by Saudis," Webb said.
Webb said that signing the nuclear deal was an indication of weakness and that it has encouraged unrest over the past several weeks in the Middle East. Previously Webb told NPR that his concern is with the bottom line of the deal and the actions Iran has taken that have not been addressed by the administration. His comments are the opposite of how his opponents in the race for Democratic presidential nomination feel.
Earlier in the debate Webb had listed three failings explaining why Russia is now involved in Syria. He cited the Iran deal as one of the reasons and said it created "bad signals and bad body language" in the region.
Iran test fired a new ballistic missile on Tuesday. The United States has said that there are "strong indications" the test violates the United Nations Security Counsil resolutions.
During Tuesday's White House press briefing spokesman Josh Earnest said that Iran's ballistic missile program is not new.
"We have seen Iran almost serially violate the international community's concerns about their ballistic missile program," Earnest said.
Earnest added that these violations are seperate from the terms defined by the nuclear deal.