How ending Iran deal threatens America

Donald Trump may have opened the lid to a nuclear Pandora’s box.

For five years, President Obama negotiated and built the most intrusive, comprehensive and detailed verification obligations on Iran in history. Now, those achievements and the benefits they brought are crumbling. America has violated an agreement not only with an Iran that is keeping its part of the bargain, but also with our closest allies: the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the European Union, as well as with Russia and China.

Trump claims he wants a better deal, but he has shattered global unity, leaving no way to recreate the kind of pressure that forced Iran to end its nuclear efforts in 2015. Even if there were, why would Iran accept a new deal with America after this?

Trump just made the Iranian supreme leader look honest and Iran like a reliable state. No small task. The Iranian people has been taught for a generation that America can’t be trusted, and Trump just proved them right.

His withdrawal from the Iran agreement makes America less safe, and here are five reasons why:

❚ Iran had been under 24-hour, seven-days-a-week surveillance at key sites; had hundreds of inspectors at its facilities; and was prohibited from expanding its uranium enrichment beyond 5,060 centrifuges, having any uranium enriched beyond 3.67% (to make a bomb, more than 90% enrichment levels are needed), or possessing any more than 300 kilograms of uranium for 15 years (far less than needed for even one bomb). Iran can now, at any time and without any notification to the world, possess as many centrifuges and as much uranium at as high an enrichment level as it choose.

❚ Several states have made clear that if Iran is able to build a nuclear weapon, they will too. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince told American reporters in March that his country would. Turkey has indicated it will match any capability Iran has. We are likely to see a mobilization race that could make the origins of World War I seem cute.

❚ While the odds are against it, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un could be sincere in stating that he wants to negotiate away his nuclear weapons and missile capabilities. Kim and Trump look likely to meet in June. If, on the off chance, Kim is for real, how or why would he take the word of the U.S. president now? The odds of a negotiated nuclear deal in North Korea just dropped from low to minuscule, and our South Korean allies are increasingly going to question both our leadership and judgment.

❚ America has led the effort to stop or slow proliferation for decades. We helped bring about the legal regime supporting inspections, sanctions, verification and benefits for states that comply with their obligations. In this, we have been the essential state and provided leadership over both Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses. After the invasion of Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that did not exist in 2003, the United States spent a decade working to restore our credibility and leadership. Trump just tore that up, too, and it will be hard to ever restore that credibility.

❚ It is not just all about nuclear weapons. When the U.S. president gives his word or negotiates a deal, it has to mean something, or our leadership across a full range of complex global issues suffers. After withdrawing from the Paris accord and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, America is isolated in trade and climate science. Now, with the destruction of the Iran agreement, America will be isolated on security affairs as well. Who would take any U.S. president’s word for anything in the future? Unless implemented by treaty, I fear fewer deals will be struck, costing America dearly.

Of course, when the war to end Iran’s nuclear program comes — the most likely outcome in the next few years — it won’t be Trump’s family that fights and dies. But by then, he will blame someone else for the failure of Iran to negotiate a new deal with the state that just tore up the last best chance to end Iran’s nuclear efforts peacefully. It is the rest of us who will have to live with the consequences.

Jon B. Wolfsthal, former senior director for arms control and non-proliferation at the National Security Council, is director of the Nuclear Crisis Group.