Two weeks ago Donald Trump cryptically said he had already made his decision about the Iran nuclear agreement. Next Thursday, Oct. 12, he’s slated to let the rest of us know what he’s decided during a speech at an as-yet unannounced venue. White House officials caution that the timing could change.
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The Washington Post reports Thursday that the decision will be not to recertify the agreement. That means the fate of the deal will be up to the Senate under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), originally a creature of Sen. Bob Corker, which specifically gives the Senate authority to restore sanctions on Iran with just 51 votes instead of 60. There are 52 Republicans in the Senate. So no Democratic votes are needed. But it doesn’t really matter because in 2015 four Senate Democrats voted against the agreement, and some might choose to reimpose sanctions now.
If that happens, Iran would withdraw from the agreement. The decertification would also without doubt piss off the other five nations that together with the United States hammered out the 2015 agreement—China, Russia, France, the U.K., and Germany.
Trump despises the agreement, which curtails Iran’s development of its nuclear program for 10 years—or more depending on the specific issue—in exchange for lifting of economic sanctions that pounded the Iranian economy for years. He has called it “terrible,” “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” Given that he is not exactly the sharpest tack when it comes to foreign policy, how much of that claim is based on Trump’s real feelings and how much on his desire to smash another of President Barack Obama successes is anybody’s guess.
The timing of the speech comes just three days before the White House must tell Congress whether Iran is in or out of compliance with the agreement, and whether it’s in U.S. interests to continue it, a process called recertification that is mandated to take place every 90 days. Trump doesn’t want to do so. He has already signed two recertifications, and he is eager to avoid signing another. This summer he made it clear to his team that he wants them to find a basis for not recertifying. So the news Thursday that he plans to decertify is no surprise.
But it is complicated by the fact that Iran’s leaders have said failure to recertify would kill the agreement. Plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged with inspecting nuclear facilities in Iran, says that Tehran is in full compliance with the agreement.
There’s another complication, too. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of the Senate Armed Services Commitee Tuesday that Iran “is not in material breach of the agreement.” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis broke this week from his boss’s assessment of the agreement as a “disaster” and said he believes staying with it meshes with U.S. interests. Thomas Gibbons-Neff and David E. Sanger at The New York Times write:
“Absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with,” Mr. Mattis told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee [Tuesday] after being repeatedly pressed on the issue.
The comments were the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s instincts on national security — to threaten North Korea with destruction and tear up an Iran accord that most experts and allies say is working — are running headlong into opposition from his own National Security Council.
But rather than keep those arguments inside the White House Situation Room, where similar battles have played out over many presidencies, Mr. Trump’s key advisers are making no secret of their disagreements with their boss.
If Trump decertifies, what happens to the Iran agreement is up to the Senate, which could choose to go along the White House decision and reimpose sanctions.
These are the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (which curbed Iran’s oil exports), the Iran Sanctions Act (more curtailment on the energy sector via banking controls), the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act and the Iran Freedom and Counterproliferation Act. Just reimposing one of these would be enough for Tehran to withdraw from the agreement.
Some of Trump’s team are trying to find a way the United States could avoid recertifying but do so in a way that wouldn’t cause the hard-liners in Iran to gain the upper hand and convince that nation’s supreme leader that continuing with the agreement is no longer in Iran’s national interests. Those hard-liners, like U.S. hard-liners which include a few Senate Democrats, opposed the agreement in the first place.
Those hard-liners might push Iran’s supreme leader to go the route of North Korea and actually develop a nuclear weapon, something the nation’s leaders have repeatedly said they have no intention of doing, though work was directed that way sporadically as late as 2002. Pyongyang now has nukes and even the most avid Western foes of the regime concede that there is no way to denuclearize North Korea now short of a devastating war that could kill millions.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who, despite demurrers, seems to have a low opinion of his boss’ brain power, told reporters Wednesday:
“We’re going to give him a couple of options of how to move forward to advance the important policy toward Iran.” [...] He said the Iran deal comprised “only a small part” of the government’s approach to Iran, a traditional U.S. adversary in the Middle East that Washington considers the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
For U.S. officials involved in the decision-making process, the focus on finding a way for Trump to avoid anything looking like approval for the accord has become a source of frustration. Various options are in play to resolve the problem, but none are clean solutions, according to officials.
We’ll find out in a week whether good sense has prevailed. The news today indicates this to be unlikely.