Trump Succumbs to Iran for Now

Tillerson says in US interest to stay in Iran nuclear deal

2 hours ago by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Michael Peel in Brussels

Rex Tillerson, secretary of state, on Sunday stressed that it was in the US national interest to remain in the Iran nuclear deal that is aimed at preventing Tehran from building nuclear weapons.
While defending Donald Trump’s decision not to endorse the accord because of its perceived weaknesses, Mr Tillerson said he and the US president did not want Congress to reimpose sanctions on Tehran that could lead to the deal unravelling.
“Let’s see if we cannot address the flaws in the agreement by staying within the agreement, working with the other signatories, working with our European friends and allies within the agreement,” he told CNN.
Mr Trump on Friday angered other signatories by refusing to certify that Iran was in compliance with the landmark nuclear deal — a determination that the president is required to make every 90 days under US law — in a move that puts the onus on Congress and US allies to attempt to find ways to save it from collapsing. It was signed in 2015 by Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the US, China, Russia, France and the UK — in addition to Germany and the EU.
Mr Trump, who during the presidential race said that he would tear up the deal on his first day in office, on Friday did not abandon it. However, he warned that if Congress and US allies did not find a solution to fix what he said were weaknesses in the deal he would walk away from it.
Mr Tillerson said he agreed with Jim Mattis, secretary of defence, that it was in the US national interest to remain in the deal.
He added that the new approach was aimed at finding other ways to tackle weaknesses in the deal which Iran and the European signatories say cannot be renegotiated.
General HR McMaster, White House national security adviser, told Fox News that Mr Trump had “set out a marker” to Iran and US allies that the “weak” deal needed fixing.
“It is a weak deal that is being weakly monitored, and so the president has made clear he will not permit this deal to provide cover for what we know is a horrible regime to develop a nuclear weapon,” Gen McMaster said.
One European diplomat said EU foreign ministers would discuss Iran in Luxembourg on Monday to “show European unity . . . and support for the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] in a session chaired by Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, who on Friday said the deal did not belong to one country and could not be terminated by one country.

. . . the president has made clear he will not permit this deal to provide cover for what we know is a horrible regime to develop a nuclear weapon

Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, on Friday said Iran would stand by the deal, saying “no president can revoke an international deal”. But he warned that Tehran could change course “if one day our interests are not served” by the accord.
Spearheaded by Bob Corker, the moderate head of the Senate foreign relations committee, and Tom Cotton, an Iran hawk, Congressional Republicans are trying to craft legislation to address what Mr Trump says are the flaws. Critics argue that any move to effectively change the deal through external measures would breach the spirit of the JCPOA and undermine efforts to keep the agreement in place.
Chuck Schumer and Ben Cardin — the top Senate Democrat and the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, respectively — both criticised the move by Mr Trump even though they were two of only four Democrats who voted against the Iran deal in 2015. They pointed to the fact that Mr Mattis, and General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the joint chiefs, both said the JCPOA was in the US interest.
“The @SenateDems agree with #SecDef Mattis and General Dunford. We won’t allow the Iran deal to be undone,” Mr Schumer tweeted on Sunday.
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