I didn’t pose the question in an accusatory way, but I know that it is a part of the deal that Israeli government officials are very concerned about, and I know that the Iranian argument would be that “the U.S. and the other powers are committed now to helping us defeat any efforts to undermine” what the Iranians call their peaceful nuclear-enrichment program. The only country in the world, outside of the countries that signed this deal, that could potentially have the capability to try to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program would be the Israelis. So the point I was trying to get him to answer is this: Does this deal obligate us to help [the Iranians] defeat measures to sabotage their program? And obviously Kerry didn’t answer directly, he just said, “Well, the intention of that is to prevent a terrorist group from getting ahold of this material.”

Goldberg: I’m not imagining a situation where any U.S. administration would even try to get away with helping Iran against Israel in that regard.

Rubio: I think the bigger concern is that Iran would say, “We’re under cyberattack. We are demanding that you help us to defeat it or to stop it.” We would then say, “No, we’re not helping you, that’s not how we read the agreement,” and Iran would then say, “Well, then you have violated the deal, and therefore we can get out.” Now is that something they’d do in six months? No. Is that something they might do in six years, as a loophole they would try to exploit? I could see that in the future. They’re going to interpret every piece of this deal in the most flexible way possible for their long-term interest, and they’re going to try to exploit any loophole to their advantage. The Iranians went into this deal with a very clear mandate, given to them by the supreme leader: Get these sanctions lifted without agreeing to anything that is irreversible. Do not agree to anything that is irreversible. I think they achieved this.

Goldberg: Would a President Rubio ever have entered into a nuclear negotiation with Iran?

Rubio: I’m not against any negotiation. Let’s step back, though. These negotiations started after the world had, on numerous occasions, ruled that Iran did not have a right to enrich or reprocess [nuclear material], and that Iran had no legitimate need for an enrichment program given their energy surplus. The world also took the position that because of Iran’s investment in long-range ICBMs, which are only developed for the purpose of placing on them a nuclear warhead, that Iran already had secret elements to those programs. [The Iranians] maintained at least two different sites that had been hidden from the world, and it took years for perhaps the two leading intelligence agencies in the world—the U.S. and the Israelis—to discover [the sites]. So, once the administration said, “OK, we are willing to negotiate with you on the basis that there is an acknowledged right to enrich or reprocess,” that is the moment the negotiations went off-track. I thought that we could have pressed on with additional sanctions that, over time, would have forced these negotiations to a better starting point. But once you cave on that and say, “You’re now going to be allowed to enrich and reprocess and retain your nuclear infrastructure and, in fact, upgrade it to more modern methods,” I thought that was when the negotiations when off-track.