With every passing day, we get closer to May 12, 2018. That date is significant, of course, because this is when President Trump will determine whether he will continue providing economic sanctions relief to Iran under the nuclear deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. If Trump is not satisfied that the terms of the JCPOA can be strengthened to his liking, he has made it abundantly clear that he will walk away from the accord with no second thoughts.
The Europeans are certainly concerned about the prospect, which is why French, German, and British negotiators have been working with their American counterparts over the last month to find a compromise. The Trump administration has been unambiguous about what it hopes to achieve during the course of these negotiations: more restrictions on Tehran’s ballistic missile program; more power for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to prowl around Iran’s uranium enrichment and centrifuge facilities virtually unencumbered; and the elimination of the sunset provisions that allow the Iranians to produce and accumulate more enriched uranium in 8-13 years time. Meanwhile, just as those talks are progressing, a group of 500 European parliamentarians has released an open letter pleading for the U.S. Congress to save the agreement from Trump’s wrath.
Will Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin eventually arrive at some sort of consensus to save the JCPOA by next month? At this stage in the discussions, it is impossible to say. But even if Trump is disappointed in the end and doesn’t receive the concessions (or demands) he is looking for, the White House should seriously re-consider its position. As much as Trump may despise the deal as a capitulation to the Iranians by his Democratic predecessor, it is the one wall separating Iran from acquiring enough nuclear material to construct a weapon.
Critics of the agreement in Washington, on and off Capitol Hill, would scoff at the notion that the JCPOA is some kind of saving grace. In some ways, they are correct; the deal is not perfect and does in fact afford the Iranians a considerable amount of leeway on how many (and what type) of centrifuges it can produce and operate after the most stringent restrictions expire. To many in Washington, the very notion of Iran being able to enrich any uranium at all on its soil is a dangerous strategic folly that should never have been under consideration. These very same people, however, had extremely unrealistic expectations of what could be achieved and the extent to which the United States could pummel Iran into submission — a nation that prides itself on its capacity to resist foreign pressure.
Those who want to destroy the Iranian nuclear agreement are responsible for putting forth an alternative that is reasonable and realistic. Instead, what we receive are simplistic formulations gifted as sure things. The reports, talking points, and press releases from think tanks and advocacy organizations that vehemently oppose the deal paint an overly rosy picture of what is possible if the United States decides to walk away. All we have to do, some suggest, is re-impose the extremely punitive and comprehensive economic sanctions regime that starved the mullahs of cash and drove the Supreme Leader to the negotiating table in the first place.
But unless the United States is willing to sanction allies in Europe and Asia by penalizing companies for doing legitimate business with Tehran in the oil, energy, banking, manufacturing, shipping, and financial sectors (chucking a wrench into Washington’s system of alliances in the process) the possibility of resurrecting the multilateral sanctions regime that drove the Iranians towards diplomacy is an exceedingly slim prospect. Nor is there an assurance that Iran would even contemplate renewed negotiations with the U.S. at that point; from their vantage point, what is the point of bargaining with someone if your sparring partner skirts obligations when it is convenient?
The sad part of this entire episode is that Trump has created a self-inflicted national security and diplomatic crisis. It is unnecessary and self-inflected because the IAEA has repeatedly verified Iran’s compliance to the JCPOA throughout the first two years of its existence. The U.S. State Department has done the same, writing in its 2018 report on arms control compliance that as of “the end of December 2017, Iran continued to fulfill its nuclear-related commitments” under the agreement. Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence (and a man who voted against the accord when he was a U.S. senator representing the state of Indiana), has testified to Congress that the JCPOA has increased Iran’s nuclear breakout time to about a year — far longer than the two to three-month time period that existed before the JCPOA was in existence.
To throw an accord into the shredder that is being complied with and is indeed having the desired effect in pursuit of the ideal is not only naive, it is detrimental to the U.S. national security interest.
To think that Trump would have the self-restraint and strategic fortitude to walk back from the red line he has created may be just as fantastical as believing that a “better deal” is within the realm of the possible. But we are where we are. Perhaps French President Emmanuel Macron can leverage his positive personal relationship with Trump to talk him out of immolating himself.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
