The rumors have been simmering for months, but it looks like President Trump is preparing to announce that Iran is in breach of the infamous “nuclear deal.” Should this happen, it could push Congress into enacting new sanctions on Iran, essentially ending the so-called deal brokered by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Washington Free Beacon reports, :The Trump administration is expected to announce next week that it will not formally certify Iran as in compliance with the landmark nuclear agreement, a move that could kill the agreement and set the stage for Congress to reimpose harsh economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic, according to multiple U.S. officials and sources familiar with the situation.”
What triggered this decision was the inability of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to determine whether or not the Iranian regime is continuing work on developing nuclear weapons.
This is absolutely stunning news. Not even 24 hour ago did Secretary of Defense James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis say that keeping the deal would be in the best interest of the United States. “Absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with,” Mattis said before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who just assured the media this morning that he wasn’t resigning from his post, told reporters that he plans to give President Trump several options for moving forward with Iran. “We’ll have a recommendation for the president. We’re going to give him a couple of options of how to move forward to advance the important policy toward Iran,” Tillerson said.
The decision on Iran, which could revoke a deal that promised sanction relief for the country in exchange for dropping its ambitions for nuclear weapons, may end up defining the Trump presidency. President Trump already has his hands full with an increasingly alarming North Korea. Ending the Iran deal could throw us back into war in another Middle East country.
The president, however, has a point. Iran recently tested a ballistic missile following Trump’s fiery U.N. speech, in which he decried the deal as being totally ineffective in preventing Iran from sponsoring terrorism around the world. Here’s just a sample of what Trump said: “The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy. It has turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos.”
Time will tell how President Trump decides to move forward. If Iran is indeed working on enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, then the deal is effectively dead. That would force President Trump to respond, reapplying sanctions to the Islamic Republic, and possibly going further.
What do you think? Is Iran not complying with the deal? Should President Trump end the deal? Share your thoughts below and please post this story on your Facebook wall!