Trump just cannot pass the buck
Whether he decertifies the Iran pact or not, the US president has to decide if the sanctions that existed before deal was struck should be waived off
President Donald Trump has made clear his hostility towards the Iran nuclear deal, labeling it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has entered into.” He is right: The ill-constructed deal left Iran with an industrial-scale nuclear programme that, when the pact’s terms begin to expire, will provide Iran with a clear pathway to nuclear weapons.
But true leadership requires Trump to do more than focus solely on Iran’s nuclear programme; he must also address the broader threats that Iran poses to the region.
Under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the bipartisan Senate compromise used by the Obama administration to get Congress to buy into the nuclear deal, the president must certify every 90 days that, among other things, Iran is fully implementing the nuclear pact and has not committed a material breach. The president must also attest that the agreement is vital to the security interests of the United States.
Proponents and opponents of the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, argue about whether Iran is in compliance. Much of the dispute rests on the scope of inspections and access to certain suspect sites. For example, the International Atomic Energy Agency is currently unable to verify the provision relating to “activities which could contribute to the design and development of a nuclear explosive device.” That Russia contends Iran has no obligation to satisfy the IAEA on this matter highlights the deal’s weakness.
The Trump administration is signaling that it plans not to recertify the nuclear agreement before an October 15 deadline. But doing that won’t end the pact. It simply punts the problem over to Congress, which will then have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran. The administration has suggested that it will not push Congress to do anything specific, and chances are that Congress will agree.
For the president to pass the buck displays neither leadership nor courage. At a minimum, Trump needs to tell members of Congress what he wants them to do, and then work to ensure the resulting legislation can pass. And whether he decertifies the pact or not, the president must decide by January 12 whether to waive once again the application of one in a broad set of sanctions that existed before the deal was struck and that have been suspended since. It is these waivers, not presidential certifications under the review law, that keep the nuclear deal alive.
Last month, at the UN General Assembly, Trump demanded freedom for American hostages held by Tehran and called on Iran’s government to “stop supporting terrorists.” Fine words, but it remains unclear what the president plans to.
Partisans may trade blame, but was it because of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq or the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in 2011, that Iran’s efforts to destabilise the Middle East have accelerated? The Syrian civil war only contributed to the perfect storm. Tehran is now aggressively interfering in countries from Afghanistan to the Eastern Mediterranean, and perhaps even farther.
Strangely, however, Trump has done little to push back on Iranian expansionism. For most of this year, the administration has been funneling financial aid to the Lebanese armed forces, which in turn have been working hand in hand with Iran’s most powerful proxy, Hezbollah, on the Lebanon-Syria border.
Trump’s oddest capitulations to Iran are in Iraq and Syria. Rather than seize opportunities to push back on Iranian power while pursuing the annihilation of the Daesh, Team Trump has largely embraced Obama-era non-policies in both states. In Iraq, the central government is desperate for assistance to rein in Iranian-backed militias that may have contributed to the fight against the Daesh but now threaten the country’s stability. If the goal is to prevent a repeat in Iraq of Hezbollah’s slow strangulation of Lebanon, the time is now.
Similarly in Syria, despite early hints that he was poised to take on the Tehran-Moscow-Damascus triumvirate, Trump has been almost supine, to the point of ignoring attacks on American-backed forces. The White House has even shrugged off news that Iran has opened another front against Israel in the Syrian Golan Heights.
If rolling back and diminishing Iranian power is the priority Trump insists it is, simply dumping the nuclear agreement in Congress’s lap may be the worst possible option. That would be politically easy, but it won’t get the job done.
Partisans may trade blame, but was it because of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq or the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in 2011, that Iran’s efforts to destabilise the Middle East have accelerated?