President Trump allowed Secretary of State #Rex Tillerson to announce late
Monday that Iran is in compliance with the terms of the 2015 nuclear
deal. Trump did not want to certify in April or recertify in July but
was persuaded on condition his team come back with a new strategy to
confront Tehran.
The first draft did not make the cut, reports The New York Times. The second did, and a notice was sent for Congress to continue withholding nuclear-related sanctions against #Iran.
Although
it’s a close call, Tillerson’s decision is a mistake. And the Iran
policy review should result in stricter enforcement of the Iran deal,
renegotiation or additional non-nuclear sanctions imposed on #Tehran for its ballistic missile testing as well as its state sponsored international terrorism.
Background
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Pros & Cons
Bureaucratic
politics play a large role in the pros and cons of whether to comply
with these deadlines and whether to remain a party to the nuclear deal
as it stands. Reports indicate fierce disagreements among the
principals. Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis
Group, expressed the theme of this column. He said on July 14, “Trump decided to keep the deal in place based on a pure cost-benefit calculus,” writing in The National, an
online journal based in the Persian Gulf. While Vaez leans toward the
pro side of the equation, this writer comes down on the side with those
against certification.
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