Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump kicks Iranian nuke deal to Congress
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday announced new restrictions on Iran, calling it “a terrorist nation like few others,” but he stopped short of scrapping the landmark nuclear deal that was the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy achievement.
Instead, the president urged Congress to consider reimposing sanctions if Iran crosses certain lines, such as firing ballistic missiles or financing terrorism. His decision, which followed what the administration said was a major review of the international deal, could put its future in jeopardy.
Trump said he would not certify that Iran was in compliance with the 2015 deal that blocked its nuclear program, though he had done so twice before under a law requiring the president’s certification every 90 days.
In addition to asking Congress to threaten new sanctions, Trump moved to impose separate penalties by executive action, including blacklisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s elite military unit that is heavily involved in much of the country’s business and trade.
“We cannot and will not make this certification,” Trump said in a speech from the White House ahead of the Sunday deadline for certification.
If Congress, as well as the six major powers that are signatories to the deal, don’t take steps to satisfactorily improve it, Trump said, the United States will end its participation in the accord. Besides Iran and the United States, the parties to the agreement are the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union.
“The longer we ignore a threat, the more dangerous it becomes,” Trump said.
Iran also violently represses its own citizens and fuels “vicious” civil wars in countries like Yemen and Syria, Trump said.
The nuclear deal, however, was limited by the allies’ consensus to addressing the arms threat, not other Iranian activities.
Trump also complained that if the Obama administration had not entered into the deal, which gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for shuttering its nuclear program, Tehran’s economy would have collapsed.
Now, he said, “We will deny the regime all paths to a nuclear weapon.”
Trump’s statement that Iran was not in compliance contradicts the opinion not only of most world authorities — notably the United Nations watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which conducts inspections in Iran — but also of the administration’s own top experts, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The president’s action threatened to further isolate Washington from its key allies and to give a boost to Iranian hard-liners who have opposed the deal from the start, as many American conservatives have. If Congress decides to reimpose the nuclear-related sanctions, a prospect far from clear, the U.S. will effectively withdraw from the agreement.
European allies had been lobbying the Trump administration not to abandon the nuclear deal; while they were chagrined by the decision, there was relief that the president did not “rip up” the accord as he’d vowed since his election campaign.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said in Brussels, “It is not up to any single country to terminate” the accord. “We have (a) collective responsibility to protect a nuke deal that’s working,” she added.
The United Kingdom, France and Germany issued a joint statement to express their concern with the U.S. action. “We stand committed to the (Iran agreement) and its full implementation by all sides,” they said.
The president’s decision didn’t please the right or the left.
Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump’s actions were a “risky gamble” that could put the broader deal in jeopardy. “The president’s plan doesn’t make sense,” he said.
“Our allies and adversaries alike will see this as a signal that the United States doesn’t live up to our commitments, making the United States a source of uncertainty instead of a force for solving serious problems.”
Several conservative experts said Trump did not go far enough.
“Simply dumping the nuclear agreement in Congress’ lap may be the worst possible option,” said Danielle Pletka, senior vice president at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “That would be politically easy, but it won’t get the job done.”
Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said he was confident that Congress, which has failed to pass any major legislation this year, would support amendments that toughen the deal.