Monday marked the anniversary of the United States’ nuclear deal with Iran, an occasion President Obama chose to celebrate amid uncertainty over whether the deal will live to see next January.
The controversial non-proliferation agreement has caused a headache for Obama since it was implemented last winter, with critics accusing the administration of easing sanctions on Iran without getting much in return and strengthening a country that remains on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
In his defense of the deal, Obama said Americans must measure it “against the alternatives” and recognize that it took “years of work” to craft.
“A diplomatic resolution that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is far preferable to an unconstrained Iranian nuclear program or another war in the Middle East,” the president said in a statement released by the White House.
However, nothing Obama has said so far seems to have dissuaded his Republican successor from fulfilling his campaign promise to jettison what he’s called “the disastrous deal with Iran.”
President-elect Trump on Sunday said he’s dissatisfied with the existing agreement with Iran, claiming the U.S. has given $150 billion back to a country that continues to violate the human rights of it citizens and threaten Israel’s existence.
“I think it’s one of the worst deals ever made. I think it’s one of the dumbest deals I’ve ever seen,” he told the Times of London.
The incoming commander in chief has already positioned himself as a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the deal’s most stringent critics, and has invited the Jewish leader to sit down with him in the Oval Office “at the first opportunity.”
“Israel is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That has not changed and will not change. As far as President-elect Trump, I look forward to speaking to him about what to do about this bad deal,” Netanyahu told attendees of the Saban Forum last month.
Beyond Netanyahu, many Republicans on Capitol Hill share Trump’s disdain for the multilateral agreement that Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated along with leaders from Russia, Germany, France, China and the United Kingdom. As do several nominees to the president-elect’s Cabinet.
“We need to examine our ability to clarify whether Iran is complying. That means no nuclear enrichment in Iran, no storing of nuclear materials in Iran,” secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson told a Senate committee last week.
“This deal is a really problematic deal and it reflects a pattern we’ve seen in the Obama administration … of negotiating with terrorists and making deals and trades that endanger U.S. safety and security,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, then Trump’s opponent in the GOP primary, said this time last year.
Other critics of the nuclear deal, including incoming Defense secretary Gen. James Mattis have urged Trump not to totally trash the agreement once he enters office. They claim doing so would weaken relations between the U.S. and other actors who were involved in negotiations, among other geopolitical consequences.
“I think the beginning point is for us to cause them to strictly adhere [to the deal]. And I think that what we have to remember is, we have to keep the Europeans and others with us in this process,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who had been considered by Trump for secretary of State, told MSNBC last week.
Corker and others recognize what Trump seemingly has yet to accept — that supranational institutions like the European Union and United Nations remain in support of the deal and that Iran could retaliate if the U.S. were to walk away from it.
“There will be no renegotiation, and the agreement will not be reopened,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi told reporters on Sunday, adding that the administration of President Hassan Rouhani will not change its position even if Trump moves to reimpose sanctions on Iran.
Trump’s inconsistent attitude toward scrapping the deal has left his supporters and the current administration questioning its fate. It wasn’t until Trump spoke to one of the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying groups last March, nine months into his presidential bid, that he used language indicating he would demolish the agreement and start over if elected.
What the president-elect does — or does not do — on his first day in office could be the greatest indicator of whether Obama’s landmark nuclear deal will live to see its second anniversary. With the swipe of his pen, Trump on day one could pull the U.S. out of the agreement and reinstate sanctions on Iran that have now been lifted for 365 days and counting.
