Trump unveils tough new Iran strategy

HE DECLARES THE 2015 AGREEMENT IS NO LONGER IN THE US NATIONAL INTEREST

President Donald Trump was to unveil a more aggressive strategy to check Iran’s growing power yesterday, but stop short of withdrawing from a landmark nuclear deal or declaring the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation.

During a speech from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, Trump will declare the 2015 agreement — which curbed Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief — is no longer in the US national interest.

Trump will withdraw presidential support for the landmark nuclear deal — known as the JCPOA — but will stop short of killing the agreement, his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said. “The intent is that we will stay in the JCPOA, but the president is going to decertify.”

“We’re saying, fine, they’re meeting the technical compliance,” he said indicating that the broader agreement would remain intact for now.

That will leave US lawmakers to decide its fate.

Trump had repeatedly pledged to overturn one of his predecessor Barack Obama’s crowning foreign policy achievements, deriding it as “the worst deal” and one agreed to out of “weakness.”

The agreement was signed between Iran and six world powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US — at talks coordinated by the European Union.

In his speech, Trump will rail against Iran’s “destabilising influence” in the Middle East, “particularly its support for terrorism and militants,” according to a fact sheet released by the White House.

“We don’t think that nuclear agreement should define the entire policy,” said Tillerson. “There are also many more immediate concerns we have with Iran’s destabilising activities in the area and in the region.”