Corker warns Iran nuke deal looks doomed

THE UNITED States is likely to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal this spring, Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Corker said.

Corker (R-Tenn.) said he doesn’t believe President Trump will recertify the agreement when the May 12 deadline arrives.

“I think the President likely will move away from it, unless our European counterparts really come together on a framework,” Corker said in an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday.

“And it doesn’t feel to me that they are. Now, as we get within two weeks of the May 12 date, that could change.”

Keeping the agreement as is is unlikely after Trump fired Secretary of State Tillerson last week, partly over their differing views on the Iran deal.

“I wanted to either break it or do something, and he felt a little bit differently,” the President said of Tillerson. “So we were not really thinking the same.”

Trump has made his dislike of the 2015 accord well-known since the presidential campaign, calling it a bad deal that gave too much to Iran.

The Obama White House worked out the deal with six mostly European countries and China to cap Iran’s nuclear program to stop it developing weapons. Iran got blistering sanctions against it lifted in exchange for compliance.

U.S. legislation governing the agreement, penned by Corker and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), needs the White House to certify the agreement every 90 days, based on whether Tehran is adhering to the deal.