Trump stipulates conditions to keep nuclear deal with Iran

Baher Abdel Azeem

Although US President, Donald Trump, has deferred pullout from the nuclear deal with Iran for the time being, there are indications that he would move ahead with this pullout, given his resolve in this regard.

Trump will not necessarily move out of the deal the way he indicated before.

During his presidential campaign, Trump threatened to move out of the nuclear deal with Iran. He believes the deal had not achieved its target and that Iran would possess a nuclear bomb, either sooner or later.

The US president also thinks that the billions of dollars of Iranian funds that had been released so far as a result of the partial lifting of sanctions on the Islamic Republic had not been used for development purposes in it. Instead, he says, Iran had used this money in financing terrorist groups.

The US administration, meanwhile, believes the nuclear deal had hindered Iran’s possession of a nuclear bomb. The administration would not surely give Trump the freedom to withdraw from the deal that was signed by five major powers side by side with Iran itself.

Deep under Trump’s position is insistence by Israel’s far-right government and its backers in the US on pullout from the nuclear deal.

The success of the nuclear deal so far makes it hard for Trump to go ahead with his plan. The deal, according to international inspectors, prevents Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.

Trump’s statement on the issue dwells on the need for reaching a better deal, which is a traditional and old idea. In this, the US president tries to get rid of a successful agreement that was reached after painful negotiations.

Diplomats participating in these negotiations put everything on the table. None of the powers involved in deal negotiations seems to be ready to undergo the experience of negotiating the deal from the very beginning yet again.

The deal itself will be considered null and void in case any of its signatories demonstrated non-commitment. In this case, Iran will be given freedom to maintain its nuclear activities.

Trump hopes to either convince the Europeans to impose new conditions on Iran in a unilateral manner or draft a complimentary agreement through participation from main European allies. It is not clear yet whether this will open the door for a new round of negotiations by the five major powers plus Iran.

Perhaps Trump does not have an idea about what he wants to do in this regard. Most probably, the US president only wants to obliterate the deal.

Trump’s statement also talks about a new resolution by the US Congress to achieve the same goal. Nonetheless, Congress does not have the authority to unilaterally change the terms of an international deal.

Trump wants Iran to allow international inspectors into all sites. It is not clear how this as a requirement is different from what is being done now. The International Atomic Energy Agency has not complained against Iran so far. The agency has not said that Tehran had denied its inspectors access into any of the sites they wanted to visit.

He also wants to ensure that Iran would not possess a nuclear bomb. The deal has surely prevented Iran from manufacturing nuclear arms.

Trump threatens to withdraw from the deal if his demands are not fulfilled. He wants the desired Congress resolution to stipulate – for the first time in American history – the right to inspect long-range rockets and nuclear programs. He also wants the resolution to open the door for tough sanctions on Iran in case it develops and experiments rockets.

Nobody knows whether Trump would go ahead with putting his ultimatum to practice.