Administration officials insist Trump hasn’t made a final decision on withdrawing from the deal, but Pompeo sure made it sound as though the U.S. will pull the plug over the objections of all the other signatories, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran. “Unlike the prior administration, we will not neglect the vast scope of Iran’s terrorism. It is indeed the greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world, and we are determined to make sure it never possesses a nuclear weapon. The Iran deal in its current form does not provide that assurance,” Pompeo said in Saudi Arabia. “We will continue to work with our European allies to fix that deal, but if a deal cannot be reached, the president has said that he will leave that deal.”

WORK WITH US, PLEASE: The leaders of Britain, France and Germany continue to argue that whatever its shortcomings, the 2015 agreement remains the “best way” to thwart Tehran’s nuclear threat. “They discussed the importance of the Iran nuclear deal … as the best way of neutralizing the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, agreeing that our priority as an international community remained preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said in a statement yesterday.

“They agreed that there were important elements that the deal does not cover, but which we need to address — including ballistic missiles, what happens when the deal expires and Iran’s destabilizing regional activity.” May, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron also pledged to “continue working closely” with the U.S. on the issue, including on “those issues that a new deal might cover.”

NOT THE DECIDER: New national security adviser John Bolton, who as recently as last month dismissed the idea that the Iran deal could be fixed as “blue smoke and mirrors,” insists he is now serving as an honest broker in presenting options to the president. “It’s his call. I’m the national security adviser, not the national security decision-maker,” Bolton said on CBS. “What I said was what I believed. I don’t back away from them. But that’s not my job now. My job is to give advice to the president. He will make the decision.”

PROMISES, PROMISES: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is making more sweeping promises about denuclearization in return for guarantees that his country won’t be invaded by the U.S. As a goodwill gesture, Kim pledged to shut down his Punggye-ri nuclear test site within weeks, while international observers and foreign journalists look on, according to South Korea. Last week, Chinese scientists reported they believed the test facility at Mount Mantap in the northeast had collapsed and was unusable. But Kim reportedly told the South Koreans that there are two other secret tunnels that are perfectly serviceable.

WHO ME? Despite his bellicose rhetoric of the past year, Kim reportedly told South Korean President Moon Jae-in in their meeting Friday that he never had any intention of nuking his neighbors or anyone else. “Although I am inherently resistant toward America, people will see that I am not the kind of person who fires nukes at South Korea, the Pacific or America,” a spokesman for Moon quoted Kim as saying. “Why would we keep nuclear weapons and live in a difficult condition if we often meet with Americans to build trust and they promise us to end the war and not to invade us?” Kim said.

KEY WORD IS ‘IRREVERSIBLE’: On ABC yesterday, Pompeo insisted Trump would not repeat the mistakes of past negotiations, in which sanctions against North Korea were lifted before there were concrete, verifiable and irreversible results. “We use the word ‘irreversible’ with great intention,” Pompeo said. “We’re not going to take promises. We’re not going to take words. We’re going to look for actions and deeds. And until such time, the president has made it incredibly clear we will keep the pressure campaign in place until we achieve that.”

WE’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE: “The North Koreans have already agreed to this. They agreed to it in 1992 with South Korea and they have pledged similar things since then,” Bolton pointed out on Fox News Sunday. “It’s also the case that they’ve lied about it and broken their commitments, just one reason there’s nobody in the Trump administration starry-eyed about what may happen here.”

THE LIBYA MODEL: Despite the fact that it didn’t end so well for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Bolton suggested Libya’s decision to give up its nuclear and chemical weapons program could be a template for a North Korean denuclearization agreement. “We have very much in mind the Libya model from 2003, 2004. There are obviously differences. The Libyan program was much smaller, but that was basically the agreement that we made,” Bolton said on Fox.

“Will President Trump insist that Kim give up, ship out, all of his nuclear weapons, all of his nuclear fuel, all of his ballistic missiles, before the U.S. makes any concessions?” asked host Chris Wallace. “Yes, I think that’s what denuclearization means,” Bolton replied.

‘NOBEL, NOBEL’: At his Michigan rally Saturday night, Trump was already taking a victory lap, claiming full credit for the remarkable turn of events on the Korean Peninsula, as an adoring crowd nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize with chants of “Nobel! Nobel!”

“That’s very nice, thank you. That’s very nice,” Trump said, smiling almost sheepishly. Nevertheless, Trump said the breakthrough showed his critics were dead wrong all along. “‘He is going to get us into nuclear war,’ they said. No. No. No. Strength is going to keep us out of nuclear war. Not going to get us in,” he told the crowd. “We are doing very well. I spoke to the president this morning of South Korea for a long time. They just had a very good meeting. He gives us tremendous credit. Gives us all the credit.”

On Friday in his meeting with Merkel, Trump insisted he won’t be “played” like past presidents. “The United States has been played beautifully, like a fiddle, because you had a different kind of a leader. We’re not going to be played, OK? We’re going to hopefully make a deal, if we don’t, that’s fine.”

A WORD OF CAUTION: Many experts are warning against unwarranted exuberance this soon in the process, and point out the many ways a nuclear deal could fail to come to fruition. We have compiled some expert opinion here about why it may be too soon to pop the champagne.

Good Monday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre), National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter @dailyondefense.