Trump to bash Iran on non-nuke issues in decertifying deal

WASHINGTON» President Donald Trump plans to deliver a broad and harsh critique of Iran in a speech Friday declaring that the landmark Iran nuclear deal is not in America’s national security interests, according to U.S. officials and outside advisers to the administration.

Trump’s speech from the White House will outline specific faults he finds in the 2015 accord but also will focus on an array of Iran’s troubling non-nuclear activities, four officials and advisers said. Those include Tehran’s ballistic missile program and support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and other groups that destabilize the region.

Under U.S. law, Trump faces a Sunday deadline to notify Congress whether Iran is complying with the accord that was painstakingly negotiated over 18 months by the Obama administration and to determine if it remains a national security priority. Although Trump intends to say Iran is living up to the letter of the agreement, he will make the case that the deal is fatally flawed and that its non-nuclear behavior violates the spirit of the regional stability it was intended to encourage, the officials and advisers said.

The officials and advisers said Trump will not call for a re-imposition of nuclear sanctions on Tehran. He will urge lawmakers to codify tough new requirements for Tehran to continue to benefit from the sanctions relief that it won in exchange for curbing its atomic program. And he’ll announce his long-anticipated intent to impose sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps by designating it a terrorist organization under an existing executive order, according to the officials and advisers.