NCRI Staff
NCRI – While Donald Trump has reportedly been keen to decertify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement ever since he took office (and even before), his advisors have always stepped in to stop him at both of the previous certification deadlines.
However, in the run-up to the October 15 deadline, all that appears to have changed and his national security team are now reportedly advising him to decertify Iran.
On October 3, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said that the nuclear deal is only in the US’s best interests if Iran is sticking by the agreement
As part of a compromise, Trump’s team have agreed to mark Iran as non-compliant with the deal (as all evidence suggests is the truth) without asking Congress to re-impose sanctions.
An Iran policy expert said: “One of the options [presented to the president] is to decertify, continue to waive the statutory sanctions, slap on new non-nuclear sanctions, roll out a new strategy, and then make the case to the Hill that this is not the time to reinstate the nuclear sanctions and there will be a broader strategy to strengthen the deal.”
It is believed that this will strike a blow to the belligerence of the Iranian Regime, who believe that they can get away with anything, without actually causing Iran to withdraw from the deal and restart their nuclear weapons programme “within hours” as threatened earlier this year by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who rejected any attempts at renegotiation.
Supporters of the agreement fear that the collapse of the nuclear deal could trigger an arms race and increase tensions in the Middle East, discourage countries like North Korea from trusting the US, and alienate European allies who want to keep to the deal.
However, it is worth noting that the Iranian Regime is consistently working to destabilise the Middle East, that North Korea does not trust the US in the first place (and likely never will) and that European allies have been convinced to support the US over the Iranian Regime in the past and will likely do so again.
The 2015 agreement, which Trump has called “the worst deal ever” and an “embarrassment”, lifted tough economic sanctions on Iran in order to obtain restrictions on the country’s nuclear weapons program.
It was signed by the US, the UK, France, Germany, the European Union, Russia, China and Iran, and endorsed by the United Nations.
If Trump refuses to certify Iran, Congress has up to 60 to decided whether or not to re-impose sanctions on Iran, but if the national security team’s plan it followed through with, it is believed that the deal will remain in place and that the US and its European allies will continue to ramp up pressure on Iran.