Trump’s Iran decision fuels concerns from all sides of deal

In a widely expected decision, President Trump announced from the White House on 13 October that his administration would not recertify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. Trump has long vilified the 2015 agreement, despite the fact that his administration recertified it in July and admitted on 3 October that Iran is in compliance.

Trump’s action introduces multiple layers of uncertainty for the future of the JCPOA. In addition to passing the baton to Congress to decide whether to bypass the agreement and impose sanctions, the move forces Iran and US allies to reevaluate their paths forward. “While not withdrawing from the deal, Trump has nonetheless taken a sledgehammer to it,” said ambassador Laura Kennedy, who was acting US representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during the final year of JCPOA negotiations.

In justifying his decision, Trump said the deal did not address many of Iran’s rogue activities, including funding Hamas and other terrorist groups, calling for the destruction of Israel, advancing a missile program, and interfering in Syria. The administration has argued for months that Iran is violating the spirit of the deal. “No one can credibly claim that Iran has positively contributed to regional peace and security,” said secretary of state Rex Tillerson in a recent New Yorker article . “Lifting the sanctions as required under the terms of the JCPOA has enabled Iran’s unacceptable behavior.”

The deal, which was agreed to by Iran and approved unanimously by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, Russia, France, the UK, and the US), Germany, and the European Union in July 2015, is focused solely on the rollback of the Iranian nuclear program. It restricts the country’s uranium enrichment programs and switches its existing reactor from highly enriched to low-enriched uranium fuel (see Physics Today, December 2015, page 26 ). “A really key part of the agreement is transparency and steps on verification,” said former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz, who helped negotiate the JCPOA, at a Pugwash arms control conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, in August. The deal sets specific benchmarks at 10, 15, and 25 years that Iran must meet.

Congress now has until 12 December to decide whether to place new sanctions on Iran, reactivate earlier sanctions that are currently suspended, or do nothing. In the Senate, reimposing sanctions requires 51 votes; implementing new sanctions requires 60 votes. On 5 October the Washington Post reported that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) doesn’t want to add the JCPOA to the legislative calendar. Five Republicans—Senators Jeff Flake (AZ), John McCain (AZ), Susan Collins (ME), and Rand Paul (KY), and Representative Edward Royce (CA)—have already indicated weak support, or no support, for any changes to the deal.

Most likely, Congress will choose not to act, and the US will remain in the JCPOA. The baton would then be passed back to Trump, who could revoke national security waivers on certain sanctions that were issued by the Obama administration. So far both administrations have renewed those waivers on a four- or six-month basis. The sanctions covered by the waivers target, among other things, Iran’s oil exports and banking system.

Alienating allies

Judging from a statement by Trump in May, his decertification move is designed in part to persuade US allies to form a stronger bond against Iran. Yet the opposite appears to be happening. “If the US walks away, we walk away alone,” Moniz said.

For months the P5+1—permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany—has stated that it would continue to support the deal without US involvement as long as Iran remains in compliance. Allies have even questioned the legal ramifications of the US backing away from its obligations. “To my knowledge, there is not one single country in the world that can terminate a UN Security Council resolution that has been adopted . . . and that the rest of the international community continues to support and to implement,” said EU high representative and vice president Federica Mogherini in response to Trump’s announcement.

Shortly after Trump’s speech, the UK, German, and French governments issued a joint statement declaring their continued support for the JCPOA. The EU announced plans to shield its companies from any sanctions imposed by the US on firms working with Iran and to send Mogherini to Washington to meet with members of Congress.

At the Pugwash meeting, Russia deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov said that Russia had seen “blunt attempts” by the US administration to stall and intimidate the international business community so it would not work with Iran, “creating an atmosphere of uncertainty about the JCPOA.” He said Russia would continue to work on efforts to broaden cooperation with Iran, even if the US doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

The Iran deal was the best one the P5+1 could get, said former UK ambassador to the IAEA Peter Jenkins at the Pugwash conference. If the deal collapses, “it will have serious repercussions for international diplomacy.”

Kennedy said Trump’s decision had already caused damage by raising “international perceptions of a go-it-alone America, careless about keeping its word and incapable of soberly assessing the consequences of its actions.” She added, “When dealing with issues of war and peace, reliability and credibility are what counts.”

Iran weighs its options

For its part, the Iranian government has tried to claim the moral high ground. While denouncing Trump’s decision, Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani and minister of foreign affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif indicated that they would stick with the agreement for now, as long as its provisions were honored.

Iran has been considering its response to a US withdrawal for some time, according to Nasser Hadian, a political scientist at Tehran University who advises the government. At the Pugwash meeting he detailed the four options on the table: Iran could withdraw from the deal; it could continue honoring the deal with the rest of the P5+1 countries; it could, in retaliation, walk back some of its commitments, such as the number of inspections and amount of fuel enrichment; or it could take on more commitments, to show the world that Iran is a better member of the international community than the US. (Hadian seriously doubts Iran would choose the last option.)

Ali Asghar Soltanieh—who once served as Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA and now advises first vice president and nuclear agency head Eshaq Jahangiri—said at Pugwash that the biggest threat to the JCPOA “is anarchy in the high [leadership] ranks of the United States.” Nobody can figure out whether it’s Trump or Congress that’s really in charge, he said. In an email to Physics Today, Soltanieh added that he believes reopening negotiations would not harm Iran, “since we will delete all provisions in the JCPOA which we have made extraordinary concessions on, thus the US would surely be the loser.”

Jenkins said that if the US withdraws from the JCPOA, then Iran and the other P5+1 members will likely continue the agreement. “We must remember that the premise behind the act is to grant time to Iran to convince the international community that it is really only interested in a civilian nuclear program and to build trust,” he said. “All else is secondary.”