Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump expected to keep deal with Iran
WASHINGTON — With new deadlines looming, President Donald Trump plans to again refuse to certify to Congress that the Iranian nuclear disarmament deal is the U.S. interest — but stop short of re-imposing energy sanctions that could kill the landmark accord, according to a U.S. official involved in the process and a person familiar with the deliberations.
The White House is expected to announce Friday the president’s decision, which could change.
The moves would maintain the status quo in place since October, when Trump first declined to certify the deal to Congress but left it intact. The Obama administration and five other world powers negotiated the accord with Iran in 2015 in an effort to block Tehran from building nuclear weapons.
Iran agreed to dismantle or destroy most of its nuclear infrastructure. In exchange, the global community agreed to ease economic sanctions related to the nuclear program. Trump has sharply criticized the deal, in part because it doesn’t limit Iranian development of ballistic missiles and support for militant groups in the Middle East.
Refusing to certify that the agreement is in the U.S. interest allows Congress to weigh in but has no direct effect on the deal. Congressional leaders have begun to look at ways to rewrite several key provisions, including possibly eliminating sunset clauses and requiring more intrusive inspections, although it’s unlikely Iran would agree.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is involved in drafting the legislation, said last week that a proposed bill is “moving along” but slowly.
Trump’s decision to waive sanctions is far more important. The sanctions relief granted under the nuclear deal opened world oil markets to Iran and allowed it to return to international banking systems and trade.
Under U.S. law, the White House must extend those waivers every four months. The next deadline is Friday, and others follow next week, although the administration could delay announcing a decision.
If Trump refuses to extend the waivers, the United States risks being in violation of the international accord, a diplomatic minefield. The U.S. not only would defy other members of the United Nations Security Council, which backed the deal, it could hand Iran a pretext to start limiting U.N. inspections or restart its nuclear program.
“Not certifying only creates the possibility of U.S. non-compliance,” said Jarrett Blanc, the State Department coordinator for implementing the agreement under the Obama administration. “Not waiving the sanctions presents a prima facie case for U.S. non-compliance. … It is deeply uncharted territory.”
Trump’s top national security aides, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis, have said they don’t like the Iran pact but have urged Trump to stick with it. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has worked with Germany, France and England to prepare to reimpose sanctions, as the nuclear deal allows, if Iran shows signs of backsliding.
Laura Holgate, former U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. agency conducting nuclear inspections in Iran, said a unilateral White House decision to abrogate the deal would hurt global efforts to negotiate a solution to the nuclear impasse with North Korea.
“U.S. credibility in terms of our willingness to enter into international agreements, or even our interest in so doing, has already been damaged, and this would be a major blow,” said Holgate.
The IAEA has repeatedly verified that Iran is in compliance with the deal, which required Tehran to dismantle its main nuclear reactor, drastically cut back on uranium enrichment, get rid of thousands of centrifuges and export most of its heavy water.
In a statement Wednesday, the White House said it was “deeply concerned” by reports that Iranian authorities had arrested thousands of protesters, and it called for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Iran.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., warned that re-imposing sanctions would undercut the protesters’ aims. “Lifting sanctions helped expose their government’s corruption and mismanagement of its economy, and reimposing them now would be turning our back on the Iranian people,” she said in a statement.