US should continue to honor the deal with Iran

The clock is ticking, counting down the seconds until May 12, the day when US President Donald Trump will decide whether to renew his waiver or restore his country’s economic sanctions against Iran. The day when the Iranian nuclear deal will be put under the severest test it has faced since it was agreed upon three years ago.

Trump has long made it clear he considers the multilateral deal a bad one. And he has repeatedly threatened to scrap it.

On Tuesday, despite visiting French President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to persuade Trump to stick to the deal, Trump again expressed his dissatisfaction, calling the deal “insane”.

He, and those opposed to the deal, claim it merely delays Iran becoming a nuclear power, and it does not address Teheran’s rising influence in the Middle East or its ballistic missile program.

Yet only a few of Iran’s adversaries in the Middle East share a similar view that it should be scrapped. The majority of the international community still supports and recognizes the deal as a good one, seeing it as the best way to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

And, as an international deal reached between Iran and six world major powers, namely China, France, Russia, Britain, the United States and Germany, plus the European Union, the accord is a political asset of the international community, the US should not try to single-handedly ruin it.

While no party was particularly happy with the deal, it is a hard-won deal based on the compromises that each side was willing to make.

As EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Wednesday, “there is one deal existing, it is working. It needs to be preserved”.

China and Russia have reaffirmed their support for the deal, calling for its comprehensive and effective implementation.

France and the United Kingdom, which joined the US in its unjustified military strikes in Syria, should stand firm and not let Trump recklessly sabotage the deal.

Not renewing the waiver would also send the wrong signal to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ahead of the planned talks between its leader Kim Jong-un and Trump, which the latter hopes will lead to Pyongyang renouncing nuclear weapons.

Trump should refrain from making any move which might cast a shadow over the current desirable trend in efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and not squander the international efforts that defused the Iranian nuclear standoff.