Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump won’t certify Iran’s pact compliance
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared a hardened stance toward Iran on Friday as he refused to certify that the Islamic Republic is in compliance with the multinational accord to curb its nuclear program, though he stopped short of repudiating the pact.
Trump said the agreement wasn’t serving U.S. national security interests and that the Iranian regime’s aggression has only escalated
since the pact was reached in 2015. He talked of new sanctions on Iran, particularly on its hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and threatened to terminate the agreement unless parties to the deal address its shortcomings.
“Iran is not living up to the spirit of the deal,” the president said. The regime
has “spread death, destruction and chaos all over the globe.”
The move puts pressure on Congress to craft new legislation that would further isolate Iran.
After twice in the past acquiescing to arguments from advisers and U.S. allies, who say Iran is keeping its end of the deal, Trump refused to certify Iran’s compliance with the accord, which gives it relief from sanctions in return for curtailing its nuclear program. Trump had to act before Sunday, the next deadline set under a law Congress passed to monitor the agreement.
“We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror, and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout,” Trump said.
Trump criticized the nuclear deal as “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” He said the accord threw an economic and political lifeline to a regime he called “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”
Congress now has 60 days to introduce legislation reimposing the sanctions on Iran that were eased under the agreement — a move that would be likely to kill the accord.
Instead, Trump asked Congress to amend the law, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. He requested that Congress set specific trigger points that would automatically reimpose sanctions unless Iran meets a list of U.S. demands, including to curb its ballistic missile program.
“In the event we are not able to reach a solution working with Congress and our allies, then the agreement will be terminated,” Trump said.
Trump denounced the Iranian government, saying it financed terrorist groups; imprisoned Americans; plotted attacks on troops; and fomented civil wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
“Given the regime’s murderous past and present,” he said, “we should not take lightly its sinister vision for the future.”
The administration also wants Congress to pass new legislation targeting so-called sunset provisions in the nuclear agreement that ease restrictions on Iranian uranium enrichment in coming years.
“I don’t want to suggest to you that this is a slam-dunk up there on the Hill; we know it’s not,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said. Legislation would put “much more stature behind this expectation we have on Iran than currently exists under the JCPOA,” he said.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the agreement reached during President Barack Obama’s administration between Iran and the U.S., Germany, the U.K., France, Russia and China. All of the other participants — and inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency — say Iran is complying with it.
ALLIES RESPOND
The United States’ European allies responded swiftly with a joint statement from British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirming their commitment to the deal, which they called “a major step towards ensuring that Iran’s nuclear programme is not diverted for military purposes.”
In televised remarks, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed Trump’s speech as “nothing but baseless allegations and insults” even as he said his country would continue to abide by the nuclear agreement, calling it “much stronger” than Trump thinks. He vowed that Iran would redouble efforts to build its defense capabilities.
“Tonight’s remarks [by Trump] showed that the deal is much stronger than what he thought during the U.S. presidential campaigns,” Rouhani said.
“The U.S. is more lonely than ever about the deal,” he added.
Rouhani used his 20-minute address to talk about tensions in Iranian-U.S. relations dating back to the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that overthrew Iran’s elected prime minister and put the shah firmly in control. Rouhani said the country would continue to build and test ballistic missiles, something allowed under the nuclear deal even though some Americans believe it violates the accord’s spirit.
“We have always been determined, and today we are more determined,” Rouhani said. “We will double our efforts from now on.”
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump and said the U.S. president had created an opportunity to “fix this bad deal” and roll back Iran’s aggression. Netanyahu has long warned that the accord failed to address Iran’s support for militant groups that act against Israel.
A member of his Cabinet, Minister of Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi, called for the U.S. to reimpose sanctions, saying on a Tel Aviv radio station on Friday that such a move would compel large international companies to choose between doing business with the Iranians or the Americans.
In Moscow, a close ally of Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, spoke ahead of Trump’s address, warning that any move to spike the deal “would undoubtedly hurt the atmosphere of predictability, security, stability and non-proliferation in the entire world.”
Saudi Arabia, however, immediately praised Trump’s tough words about the kingdom’s regional rival. While Saudi Arabia says it supports the nuclear deal, it has accused Iran of exploiting the economic benefits of sanctions being lifted “to continue destabilizing the region, especially through its ballistic missile development program and its support for terrorism in the region.” Saudi Arabia and Iran back warring factions in Syria and Yemen and opposing groups in Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain also came out in support of Trump’s move.
EFFORTS IN CONGRESS
Ben Cardin, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blasted Trump’s stance as a “reckless, political” act that “is one of the most dangerous and consequential decisions the president has made imperiling U.S. national security.”
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin applauded Trump’s decision to roll back a “fatally flawed” pact.
Leading Republican opponents of the Iran deal, including Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce of California, have backed Trump’s approach.
“As flawed as the deal is, I believe we must now enforce the hell out of it,” Royce said at a committee hearing Wednesday.
Sen. Bob Corker — the Tennessee Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who has been involved in a Twitter feud with Trump in recent days — will play a key role.
Corker offered the outline Friday of a measure he will propose calling for an “automatic snapback of U.S. sanctions” if Iran moves closer to having a nuclear weapon. It also calls for eliminating the sunset provisions in the nuclear deal, bolstering the powers of international inspectors and further limiting Iran’s advanced centrifuge program.
“The legislation would not conflict with” the nuclear accord on passage, according to Corker’s outline. “Instead, it would set conditions that halt Iran’s nuclear program and provide a window of time for firm diplomacy and pressure to work.”
Corker worked on the
proposal with administration officials and Cotton, and he predicted it could earn bipartisan support.
Moments before Trump spoke, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on the the hard-line Revolutionary Guard, designating it a supporter of terrorism for its backing of the Quds Force, which conducts operations outside Iran. But the Trump administration stopped short of declaring the Revolutionary Guard, which plays a key military and economic role within Iran, a foreign terrorist organization.
Such a designation, Tillerson said, would impede military operations in which U.S. and Iranian forces found themselves on the same battlefield — presumably fighting the Islamic State.