US President Donald Trump has all but decided to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord by May 12 but exactly how he will do so remains unclear, two White House officials and a source familiar with the administration\u2019s internal debate said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
There is a chance Trump might choose to keep the United States in the international pact under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief, in part because of \u201calliance maintenance\u201d with France and to save face for French President Emmanuel Macron, who met Trump last week and urged him to stay in, the source said.<\/p>\n
A decision by Trump to end U.S. sanctions relief would all but sink the agreement and could trigger a backlash by Iran, which could resume its nuclear arms programme or \u201cpunish\u201d U.S. allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, diplomats said.<\/p>\n
Technically, Trump must decide by May 12 whether to renew \u201cwaivers\u201d suspending some of the U.S. sanctions on Iran. One of the White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was possible Trump will end up with a decision that \u201cis not a full pullout\u201d but was unable to describe what that might look like.<\/p>\n
A presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday about what he said was documentary evidence of Tehran\u2019s past nuclear arms programme could give Trump a fresh argument to withdraw, even though U.N. inspectors say Iran has complied with the terms of the deal.<\/p>\n
Iran has denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and accuses its arch-foe Israel of stirring up world suspicions against it.<\/p>\n
The pact between Iran and six major powers – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States – was among former U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s signature foreign policies but has been described by Trump as \u201cone of the worst deals I have ever witnessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House official said Trump was \u201cmost of the way there towards pulling out of the deal but he hasn\u2019t made the decision\u201d and that he \u201cseems poised to do it but until a decision is made by this president it is not final.\u201d<\/p>\n
Top aides are not seeking aggressively to talk Trump out of withdrawal because he seems intent on it, a second White House official said.<\/p>\n
Trump gave Britain, France and Germany a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as the deal\u2019s flaws – its failure to address Iran\u2019s ballistic missile programme, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and \u201csunset\u201d clauses under which some of its terms expire – or he will reimpose U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n
While European officials continue to work towards such a \u201cfix,\u201d they believe the odds are against reaching one.<\/p>\n
One of the main sticking points has to do with the \u201csunsets,\u201d where the United States in effect wishes to find a way to extend some of the limits on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme beyond their expiration dates under the agreement.<\/p>\n
The source familiar with the debate said U.S. negotiators are hamstrung by the fact that they do not really know where Trump\u2019s \u201cred line\u201d is and so they cannot tell the Europeans what would secure Trump\u2019s blessing.<\/p>\n
Trump could refuse to renew the waivers but give new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo time to negotiate more with the Europeans, exploiting the deal\u2019s dispute resolution mechanism or the time before the most draconian sanctions take effect.<\/p>\n
Several sources familiar with the negotiations said that if Trump pulls out, a question for the Europeans will be whether this would be the start of a much harder U.S. line towards Iran, including military confrontation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Europeans are not keen to be dragged into a regional conflict by the U.S.,\u201d said one source familiar with the talks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump has all but decided to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord by May 12 but exactly how he will do so remains unclear, two White House officials and a source familiar with the administration\u2019s internal debate said on Wednesday. There is a chance Trump might choose to keep the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30011,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30009\/revisions\/30011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}