Iran has ramped up its illicit activities in Syria and Iraq, the U.S. military’s top general told lawmakers Tuesday, and the Islamic Republic has been boosted in such pursuits by the funds it received under the 2015 nuclear deal.
“There are indicators that some money that was freed up as a result of JCPOA has been put back into malign activities,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee, using an acronym for the nuclear deal. “Certainly I’d be hard pressed to find anything that Iran does that is good.”
Dunford said that Iran is adhering to its obligations under the deal, and testified that the deal has delayed Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. But he warned that Tehran has not stopped its missile, maritime, and cyber activities, as well as its support of proxy groups in the Middle East.
“Iranian activity inside Iraq has certainly increased as they look to the endgame in Iraq,” he said. “It’s been relatively constant in Yemen with regard to their support for the Houthis, clearly their support for Lebanese Hezbollah has been at a high level for some period of time.”
Iran has long sought to build a land-bridge in the Middle East, from Tehran, to Baghdad, to Damascus, to the eastern Mediterranean. To that end, it has sent troops and weapons to Syria in support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Dunford’s testimony comes ahead of a certification deadline that requires President Trump to report to Congress on a range of conditions linked to the Iran nuclear deal. Three of those conditions relate to Iran’s implementation of the nuclear deal. The fourth asks Trump to certify that continued sanctions relief is in America’s vital national security interests.
Proponents of decertification say that affirming that fourth condition, at the least, is impossible. Decertifying, they point out, would not necessarily mean withdrawing from the nuclear deal. If Trump does not certify in October, Congress has 60 days to debate whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran.
Dunford would not say publicly whether he is advising the president to certify or decertify. But, when asked, he said that he agreed with a statement made by Defense Secretary James Mattis about the nuclear deal in January: “When America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.”
“My recommendation the previous two times was informed by that, and the fact that the intelligence community had determined that there was not a material breach to the JCPOA,” Dunford said. Trump certified Iranian implementation of the deal during the last two deadlines in April and July.
The general added that he previously advised that the administration to address Iran’s non-nuclear malign activities.
“What I recommended is that we focus leveraging our partners that were part of that agreement to deal with the other challenges that we know Iran poses—whether the terrorist threat, the maritime threat, and so forth,” he said.
Asked earlier whether leaving the nuclear deal would affect America’s ability to negotiate with North Korea, Dunford hazarded that leaving the deal without evidence of a material breach “would have an impact on other’s willingness to sign agreements.”
Dunford also raised concerns Tuesday about the nuclear deal’s expiration date.
“The one thing we all have to come to grips with is there is a sunset to the current JCPOA and that needs to be addressed in the near term,” he said.
President Donald Trump described the deal as an “embarrassment to the United States” last week.
“We cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program,” he said at the United Nations.
