Trump ‘withdrawal’ from JCPOA damaging US credibility, benefiting Iran

The severe blow dealt to US credibility and trustworthiness in the area of signing international agreements is the greatest and most longstanding harm that Washington will suffer as a result of withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.

Many international experts and, even, Washington’s allies had warned the Trump administration against the definite erosion of US credibility that would be caused by the move.

On the threshold of nuclear negotiations with North Korea, Washington’s damaged credibility would work to the detriment of the US and lead to its failure in arriving at an agreement with Pyongyang.

Moreover, the ruined US trustworthiness is the subject of the most intense criticisms leveled at the Trump administration from within the country. In addition to former US senior officials including Barack Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton as well as Democrats, who have implicitly and harshly criticized Trump over his withdrawal from the deal – also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – prominent Republican figures have also expressed their discontent with the move and the present condition. That is why efforts have been being made by the members of the US administration to describe Washington behavior toward the JCPOA as ‘withdrawal’ from an agreement and not reneging on it.

In the primary media reactions to Trump’s move, his national security adviser, John Bolton, also put considerable emphasis on the term ‘withdrawal’ to marginalize the entire issue that the deal has been violated and divert the public opinion from it.

However, this enormous stress laid by the members of the Trump administration, per se, conveys two important messages:

1. Despite all the slogans and rhetoric, the US government is extremely concerned about its international credibility. The US officials are very well aware that the country is still suffering from the long-term international consequences of the mendaciousness of the George W. Bush’s administration when justifying its 2003 invasion of Iraq. That dishonesty has drastically limited Washington’s ability to carry out diplomatic maneuver. Thus, they now plan to do their best to reduce the severity of this new damage as much as they can, and using a quasi-legal language and a seemingly rational reasoning, justify their unusual and nonstandard move and performance to the public opinion inside the country and other governments. Nevertheless, the US government’s current extreme sensitivity and weakness have provided the Iranian diplomatic apparatus with a unique opportunity to take optimal advantage.

2. The US officials’ overemphasis on using the term ‘withdrawal’ instead of any other word to describe Trump’s move, shows that they have either been extremely careless and inconsiderate in devising the method of their exit from the deal to the extent that they had failed to foresee its legal consequences or have advertently preferred the legal consequences over seeing their international credibility and trustworthiness damaged and ruined, respectively.

The legal consequences of US approach, however, fails to be minor. One of them is that Washington has practically deprived itself of the opportunity to use the so-called ‘snapback’ mechanism to renew the United Nations (UN) sanctions on Iran. The US is currently no longer capable of filing any complaint against the Islamic Republic of Iran in the JCPOA’S Joint Commission and, later, the UN Security Council, as a signatory to the deal.

In other words, the Trump administration has deprived the US of the chance to reinstate the multilateral sanctions of the UN Security Council against Iran and has practically limited the range of its anti-iran activities and plots to the Congress’ unilateral embargoes.

The other negative consequence of Trump’s odd approach toward the JCPOA is that Washington has practically deprived itself of the vote it had in the Joint Commission of the JCPOA and, has, thus, slightly altered the unfair balance between the Western and non-western (Iran, China and Russia) votes in the commission in favor of the latter.

Naturally, by pulling out of the JCPOA, the Trump administration has also deprived itself of the chance to call for an opportunity to inspect Iran’s critical centers, within the framework of the JCPOA. Therefore, the US strategists will no longer be able to invent their flimsy pretexts. Although Iran should not overlook the negative consequences of the reinstatement of the US unilateral sanctions, it is also required to notice the positive outcomes of Trump’s move which provides Tehran with many opportunities.

* The above analysis by by Reza Nasri, an international law expert, was first published by Donya-ye Eqtesad newspaper.