Lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee are hinting at still-secret details related to Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal that the president could use to back up a potential October decertification.
Trump is required by law to report to Congress every 90 days on Iranian implementation of the nuclear deal. If he decertifies compliance on or before October 15, Congress then has 60 days to debate reimposing sanctions lifted under the agreement—some of which Trump waived this week.
“Does he have basis [to decertify] is really an intelligence question, you’re dealing with classified information to start with on that,” Oklahoma senator James Lankford told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “There are issues, there are concerns, let me put it that way.”
“The president, whatever decision he makes, is going to have to make the decision and then put out the reasons why in a way that he can de-classify. That’ll be important to be able to see,” Lankford added.
In a few weeks the president will have to certify to Congress on four distinct questions: (1) Is Iran fully, verifiably, and transparently implementing the deal and related agreements? (2) Has Iran committed a material breach with respect to the deal? (3) Has Iran taken any actions that could “significantly advance” its nuclear program? And (4) Is continued sanctions relief appropriate and proportionate to Iran’s nuclear measures, and vital to America’s national security interests?
Idaho senator Jim Risch was equally hesitant to share details when asked whether the president should decertify in October.
“I sit on the intelligence committee, so I have certain information in that regard that I can’t talk to you about,” he said. “I’m really reluctant to weigh in to it until after he does it, and particularly if he states reasons for it.”
Risch added that his resistance toward the deal has only grown stronger since 2015.
“I don’t think it should’ve been passed in the first place,” he said. “I haven’t changed my view on that at all, in fact if anything I’ve become more entrenched in that position.”
Senator Tom Cotton, an intelligence committee member and advocate of unwinding the deal, has advised the president to decertify.
“The vast majority of Republicans in Congress continue to believe the Iran nuclear deal was a very bad deal that’s had very negative effects, not only on the four corners of the deal itself, but on empowering Iran and their support for terrorism,” Cotton said.
The Arkansas senator noted that the law governing the 90-day certifications requires the president to certify not only Iranian implementation of the deal, but also that the deal is in America’s vital national security interests.
“I simply do not see how we can certify that,” he said.
Decertification itself would not “blow up” the deal, Cotton said, but would send a strong signal about the president’s intentions.
“It would certainly indicate to our European partners and to Iran that Donald Trump means it when he says that the nuclear deal is a disaster and he’s not going to continue with it,” he said.
CIA director Mike Pompeo, a reported proponent of decertification, has also publicly detailed an increase in illicit Iranian activity.
“With respect to the Iranians, they are on the march,” he said in April and gave examples of Iranian support for terrorism and missile activities. “The list of Iranian transgressions has increased dramatically since the date that the [nuclear deal] was signed.”
Still, a number of Republicans say they have yet to receive guidance from the White House on the October certification, including Majority Whip John Cornyn. “I have not heard anything about that,” he told TWS last Tuesday.
Tennessee senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that Trump had not yet made up his mind on what to do in October.
The president signaled in July that he would not certify—but the administration is still reportedly weighing a range of options, including certification.
That route, supported by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, conditions the next certification in January on whether the deal’s flaws are fixed, according to the Associated Press.
Another option involves decertifying and letting Congress debate whether to reimpose sanctions. United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley touched on that path earlier this month. “Congress could debate whether the nuclear deal is in fact too big to fail,” she said.
Opponents of the agreement have laid out a number of bases that Trump could cite to decertify, including violations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorses the deal.
“Corker-Cardin asks us to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle,” Haley said earlier in September, referring to the law that lays out congressional review of the nuclear deal. “Under its structure, we must consider not just the Iranian regime’s technical violations of the [nuclear deal], but also its violations of Resolution 2231 and its long history of aggression.”
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog (IAEA) said last week that Iran is implementing its nuclear commitments under the deal. Haley has raised concerns about “numerous undeclared sites” in Iran that have not been inspected by the IAEA.
