{"id":8461,"date":"2017-10-10T20:32:09","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T01:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=8461"},"modified":"2017-10-10T20:32:09","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T01:32:09","slug":"hes-right-about-iran-jcpoa-freeiran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/8461\/","title":{"rendered":"He’s Right About #Iran – #JCPOA #FreeIran"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Weekly Standard, October 10, 2017 <\/strong>– Presidential candidate Donald Trump disparaged the Obama administration\u2019s nuclear deal with Iran in characteristically superlative terms: \u201cMy number-one priority,\u201d he said to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March 20 <\/a>16, \u201cis to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. I have been in business a long time. I know deal-making, and let me tell you, this deal is catastrophic\u2014for America, for Israel, and for the whole Middle East. . . . We have rewarded the world\u2019s leading state sponsor of terror with $150 billion, and we received absolutely nothing in return.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t disagree with Trump\u2019s reasoning then, and we don\u2019t now. This magazine has been sharply critical of much the president has done, but on two vital questions\u2014Iran and North Korea\u2014we believe his instincts are sound. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, negotiated by the Obama administration and signed in 2015, took pressure off one of the world\u2019s most aggressive sponsors of terrorism in exchange for empty promises not to pursue its aim of building a nuclear weapon. The deal was, indeed, catastrophic.<\/p>\n

Congress never ratified it, but lawmakers did codify some oversight. The 2015 Corker-Cardin act requires the president to \u201ccertify\u201d Iran\u2019s compliance with the terms of the deal every 90 days. When certifying the deal, the president must avow four points: that Iran is \u201ctransparently, verifiably, and fully\u201d implementing the agreement; that Iran \u201chas not committed a material breach with respect to the agreement\u201d; that it\u2019s taken no action, \u201cincluding covert activities, that could significantly advance its nuclear weapons program\u201d; and that continuing to suspend sanctions is in the U.S. national interest.<\/p>\n

It is unassailably obvious that the Iranian regime has not complied with the agreement. The Iranians have not given international inspectors unfettered access to nuclear and military facilities, as the agreement requires. They have attempted to acquire banned nuclear and missile technology. They have exceeded the agreement\u2019s limits on advanced centrifuges and heavy-water production. They continue, moreover, to sponsor terrorism around the world and abet the brutalities of Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime in Syria.<\/p>\n

Trump made the decision to certify Iran\u2019s compliance in July, by all accounts against his instincts, having been talked into it by some of his closest advisers, as Stephen F. Hayes and Michael Warren show elsewhere<\/a>\u00a0 in these pages. Three months ago the administration squared the circle by declaring the Iranians to be in \u201ctechnical compliance\u201d with the agreement but \u201cin default of the spirit\u201d\u2014a reasonable ploy to buy time while the administration figured out what to do next.<\/p>\n

How the months flew by! The problem is here again\u2014the deadline is October 15\u2014and the president by all reports is leaning toward refusing to certify compliance.<\/p>\n

That will bring its own set of problems, to be sure. Congress would have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose the sanctions lifted when the JCPOA came into force. Trump\u2019s national security advisers appear to have no illusions about Iran and reject Obama\u2019s woefully misguided notion of a U.S.-Iran partnership for Middle East security. They also know that the Iran deal is a fact. The danger of walking away from the agreement is not that Iran will feel emboldened to continue pursuing its nuclear program and exporting terror\u2014it\u2019s already doing both. The danger, as Reuel Marc Gerecht explains<\/a>\u00a0elsewhere in these pages, is that Iran will more aggressively undermine American interests in the region at a time when the United States is already in retreat from it. President Trump hasn\u2019t given any indication of having a strategic vision for the Middle East. That, we assume, is why Secretary of Defense James Mattis told a Senate committee on October 3 that he thought preserving the agreement was in America\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

Maybe. But the administration\u2019s credibility is at stake. The president has said, repeatedly and in strident terms, that the JCPOA is a bad deal for the United States. If Trump once again gives his blessing to an agreement he believes to be \u201cdisastrous\u201d and \u201ccatastrophic,\u201d the Iranians will draw the wholly valid conclusion that the 45th president is as weak and na\u00efve as the 44th. So will rogue regimes and terrorist organizations around the world.<\/p>\n

Some reports suggest that Trump may refuse to certify the deal, as we urge him to do. But that\u2019s more than a matter of not signing a document. It will take resolve. It will require imposing a new program of executive-branch sanctions on the regime and particularly on its Revolutionary Guard Corps, and it will require a substantially increased level of commitment and vigilance on the part of the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s ruling elite are increasingly restive because the 2015 nuclear deal, though it eased some sanctions in return for minimal alterations in the regime\u2019s behavior, has not resulted in the high levels of foreign investment they hoped for. They need money. The credible threat of new and tough sanctions, together with more deliberate engagement in Syria and Iraq, may bring the country\u2019s clerical rulers to a more compliant state of mind.<\/p>\n

Trump has the right instincts on Iran. We hope he also has resolve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Weekly Standard, October 10, 2017 – Presidential candidate Donald Trump disparaged the Obama administration\u2019s nuclear deal with Iran in characteristically superlative terms: \u201cMy number-one […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,38],"tags":[92,93,90,91],"class_list":["post-8461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-nuclear","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran-nuclear","tag-jcpoa","tag-the-worlds-leading-state-sponsor-of-terror-with-150-billion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8463,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461\/revisions\/8463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}