Trump pulls US out of Iran nuclear agreement
Tehran sanctions renewed; European leaders, Obama bemoan decision
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Tuesday the United States will withdraw from the landmark Iran nuclear agreement and reimpose sanctions on Tehran, a decision that angered allies who fear the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the heart of the Middle East.
Claiming that “the decaying and the rotten structure” of the 2015 agreement does not block Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Trump said at the White House that “the Iran deal is defective at its core.”
The decision drew criticism from Trump predecessor Barack Obama, who argued in a Facebook post that the deal is working and withdrawing from it is a serious mistake.
“The United States could eventually be left with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East,” Obama said.
While European leaders said they would try to maintain the agreement with or without the United States, Iran’s president said there is only a “short time” for renegotiations – otherwise his country could increase the process of enriching uranium, a component of weapon making.
“I have ordered Iran’s atomic organization that whenever it is needed, we will start enriching uranium more than before,” Iran President Hassan Rouhani said on state television, adding that could start “in the next weeks.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May – all of whom urged Trump to stay in the Iran agreement – issued a joint statement expressing “regret and concern” over the decision.
Hoping to maintain a truncated agreement, the European leaders asked Iran to “show restraint.” They also asked Trump and the United States “to avoid taking action which obstructs its full implementation by all other parties to the deal.”
Democratic lawmakers and other supporters of the Iran agreement said Trump’s decision would undermine U.S. and global security.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said pulling out of the agreement “will only succeed in driving a wedge between us and our allies,” and “will effectively greenlight Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.” Warner and others said Iran has been complying with the agreement by eliminating technology needed to make nuclear weapons.
In justifying his decision, Trump bashed Iran for what he called support of terrorism and threats toward Israel.
David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called Trump’s move “a blunder” that “undercuts our standing
and credibility, alienates our allies, empowers our enemies and will make the Middle East more dangerous.”
Others, including top Trump aides and congressional Republicans, applauded the president’s decision to terminate. They said sanctions relief has provided Iran the money necessary to build up a ballistic missile program and to finance fighters in rival countries.
“From the beginning, the Obama-era Iran Deal was deeply flawed,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., adding the world needs to address “a range of destabilizing Iranian behavior – both nuclear and non-nuclear.”
Trump had said he wanted to give international partners and lawmakers a chance to improve the deal in which the U.S. and allies pulled back sanctions as Iran gave up the mechanical means to make nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, he said those efforts had fallen short.