Isolating The Iranian Nuclear Horn (Daniel 8)

Could Trump trash the Iran deal? Yes, but it's complicated

Oren Dorell | USA TODAY4 hours ago

President-elect Donald Trump has mocked and decried the nuclear deal the Obama administration negotiated with Iran ever since he started running for president.

In September 2015, Trump said he would “renegotiate” the agreement, reached two months earlier, which curtailed Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful activities in return for the lifting of crippling sanctions over time. Last month, Trump said Iran "should write us a letter of thank you" for "the stupidest deal of all time." Vice President-elect Mike Pence said the deal would be “ripped up” after consultation with U.S. allies.

So, could Trump shred it if he wants to?

Yes, State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirms. "The agreement is valid only as long as all parties uphold it," he said Wednesday.

The threats from Trump and his team were enough to prompt Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to issue statements about the future of the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. It cannot be changed by one government’s decision, Rouhani insisted Wednesday.

“Iran exercised prudence concerning the nuclear agreement as it confirmed JCPOA as a U.N. Security Council Resolution, not as an agreement with one government,” he said, according to the government controlled Iranian Students News Agency.

The nuclear deal was reached between the USA, Russia, Britain, France and China — the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — plus Germany. All approved it.

Zarif urged the new American president-elect to face the reality of regional and international affairs.

The reality is that Iran was brought to the bargaining table with the help of crippling sanctions imposed by the U.S, the U.N. Security Council and the European Union at the urging of the Obama administration and Congress. And Russia, China and the United States' allies in Europe have already started doing business with oil-rich Iran since the deal was inked, and they hope for more.

European countries have lifted sanctions. Iran has made deals to expand its oil fields, build cars, and buy dozens of aircraft from the EU's Airbus and the U.S.' s Boeing Corp. Russia is deploying anti-aircraft systems to Iran. The U.S. released its hold on tens of billions of dollars in Iranian oil revenues that had been frozen in foreign bank accounts. Iran’s once depressed economy is enjoying a moderate recovery.

Iran has also expanded its policy of supporting Shiite militias in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. In Iraq thee militias are battling the Islamic State, a Sunni group that both Shiite-dominated Iran and the U.S. consider an enemy. But in Syria, the militias are mostly fighting U.S.-backed anti-government rebels, and in Yemen, they're fighting the U.S.- and Saudi-backed government. Pulling out of the deal could risk exacerbating these conflicts or lifting the constraints on Iran’s nuclear program at a time when it is expanding its economy and military activities abroad.

Toner said State Department officials will explain the merits of the deal to Trump’s transition team, though any decision about sticking to the terms of the agreement would be up to the next administration.

Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama administration “feel very strongly the Iran deal has worked,” Toner said. “It prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon in a short period of time.”

It also provided for increased and more intrusive monitoring by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, he said. And the agreement required the approval of lawmakers from every country that signed it, including the GOP-controlled U.S. Congress and the Iranian parliament.

“This deal does what it says it would do, which is prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Toner said.

Trump announced he would not honor the agreement, “all U.S. sanctions that have been lifted or suspended are going to be re-imposed, by executive order,” said Mark Dubowitz, a critic of the deal who is executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
More likely, Trump won't rip up the agreement, but signal he’s going to aggressively enforce it, and “not tolerate any Iranian cheating or challenging of the deal,” Dubowitz said.