Trump Alienates America’s Allies and Hands Iran a Victory

[CaliCat 3,957]

America continues to win!!

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/trump-false-narrative-iran.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

 

For months, so-called president Trump has been trying to dismantle the Iran deal. 

 

Mr. Trump repeatedly bashed the agreement during last year’s campaign. Once in the White House, American law required the president to certify to Congress every 90 days that Iran was complying. Even Mr. Trump’s adversarial relationship with the truth could not dodge the fact that Iran is in compliance — as determined repeatedly by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the American intelligence community and our closest European allies. Mr. Trump has found it galling to certify — not once, but twice — that a deal he described as “the worst ever” and “an embarrassment” is working.

 

Mr. Trump’s false narrative began with a whopper: that the Obama administration lifted sanctions “just before what would have been the total collapse of the Iranian regime” — an assertion wishful thinkers in Washington have been making every year for the past four decades. To the contrary, while sanctions succeeded in bending the regime enough to get it back to the negotiating table, it had become clear they could not break it.

 

Now that Mr. Trump has decertified Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement, Congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions. Mr. Trump called on Congress and America’s allies to use the time “to address the deal’s many serious flaws.” If not, he said, “the agreement will be terminated.”

By “fix” Mr. Trump means legislation to impose new conditions on Iran beyond the purview of the agreement and to extend its constraints indefinitely. That would put the United States, not Iran, in violation of the agreement and isolate Washington, not Tehran, around the world. It would allow Iran to resume its pursuit of nuclear weapons or to stick with the deal for its economic benefits, forcing the United States to sanction its closest allies for doing business with Tehran. It would provide a “we told you so” gift to Iranian hard-liners in their struggle with pragmatists. It would shackle, not advance, Mr. Trump’s ability to sign others on to his broader strategy to confront Iranian aggression. More broadly, it would undermine America’s credibility — and its ability to strike agreements that make the country safer in the future.

Congress must resist the temptation — and the political pressure — to unilaterally renegotiate the Iran deal and therefore kill it. Instead, it could usefully lay out what Mr. Trump’s speech did not: an actual comprehensive strategy to contend with Iran’s non-nuclear behavior, including diplomatic efforts to end the conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Iraq that Iran exploits; stronger security cooperation with the Gulf States and Israel; better coordination with America’s allies; and targeted sanctions on Iran that do not violate the nuclear accord. Unlike Mr. Trump’s decision to decertify Iran, that would be a real contribution to America’s security.