Trump laid out several conditions on which the preservation of the deal, officially called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was dependent, including severe sanctions for the development and testing of missiles, and granting international inspectors access to all sites as requested in perpetuity.

Trump needs to recertify the agreement every 90 days and as the May 12 deadline looms, it seems that the EU does not have a specific plan in place.

Euronews: The historic visit of the leaders of the two Koreas and the prospect of a nuclear deal on the Korean Peninsula with the United States, compared to the severely negative approach by Trump to Iran's nuclear deal, has raised the questions in Iran. Tehran is wondering whether it would have been better off posing a threat, like Pyongyang, and come to the negotiating table with this position of power.

Cornelius Adebahr: The two cases are strikingly different indeed, yet they do not compare easily. They speak more to the unpredictability of US policy than to the situation of either North Korea and Iran. That also makes it difficult to argue concisely that, had Iran only developed a bomb like Pyongyang, it would be in a different position today. First of all, Tehran has repeatedly declared that it has not and will not build a nuclear bomb. Starting a debate about the "what ifs” weakens this position from a categorical to a tactical one. Second, North Korea has a neighbour in the South that is aiming for peace, and one in the North that protects it. Iran has a very different regional environment and a different, more expansive, foreign policy. Finally, it’s not only about the United States. The JCPOA was struck with six other world powers (China, the EU, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom), while the Six-Party Talk on North Korea has been suspended for nearly a decade.

Euronews: With Trump’s potential withdrawal, how likely is it Iran will exacerbate existing crises in the region to exert pressure on US allies, in particular, Saudi Arabia and Israel?

Cornelius Adebahr: Such an escalation is certainly a possibility, and some Iranian decision-makers have actually pointed to it. Whether this is also in Iran’s interest, is a different question. At least Israel seems fully prepared to take on Tehran also militarily, if not ready to pre-empt any attack. Like with the nuclear deal itself, it may be more advisable to stick to an imperfect agreement than to bring about a situation that is much worse for all parties concerned — for example, a widespread war in the Middle East. Whether or not the countries concerned, but in particular Iran, can settle for absolute gains — no war, some trade — or will feel compelled to measure the relative gains — "if I cannot win more, the other sides should lose too" — is the crucial question.

A possible US decision to pull out of the deal despite the new EU sanctions could leave Europe in a particularly tricky situation, according to Adebahr.

Cornelius Adebahr: Without doubt, the EU is in a particularly tight spot. Its aim is to maintain the re-established ties with Iran while keeping the United States in the deal. While transatlantic relations would suffer a severe blow from a US withdrawal from the JCPOA, they would likely survive broadly intact as they are so vast. However, EU-Iran relations would probably reach a new low if Tehran, even in response to a US violation of the deal, were to renege on its obligations and restart enrichment — let alone follow the North Korean script and develop a bomb.</s>As anyone who reads the news knows, Donald Trump will decide by May 12 whether to “withdraw from” or “pull out of” or “abandon” or “scrap” or “jettison” (the synonyms keep coming) the nuclear deal with Iran. Why May 12? Because last October, Trump declared that Iran isn’t complying with the agreement. Under a law passed by Congress, that “decertification” means Trump can reimpose the sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear activities that were waived as part of the deal. Trump hasn’t reimposed those sanctions yet. But he’s demanded that Iran make vast new concessions. And he’s threatened that if Iran does not do so by May 12, “American nuclear sanctions would automatically resume.” There’s an irony here. For all of the drama surrounding Trump’s decision to decertify Iranian compliance with the deal, there’s little doubt that Iran is complying. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said so nine times. America’s European allies have said so. So has Trump’s own Defense Secretary, James Mattis. This very month, Trump’s State Department issued a report declaring that, “Iran continued to fulfill its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” the technical name for the nuclear deal. (The deal’s opponents often cite the two times Iran narrowly exceeded the agreement’s 130 metric ton cap on heavy water, which is used in nuclear reactors: In both cases Iran shipped the excess out of the country, and it remains in compliance with the deal.)

The more interesting question isn’t whether Iran has been complying with the nuclear deal. It’s whether America has. American journalists often describe the agreement as a trade. In the words of one CNN report, it “obliges Iran to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the suspension of economic sanctions.” But there’s more to it than that. The deal doesn’t only require the United States to lift nuclear sanctions. It requires the United States not to inhibit Iran’s reintegration into the global economy. Section 26 commits the U.S. (and its allies) “to prevent interference with the realisation of the full benefit by Iran of the sanctions lifting specified” in the deal. Section 29 commits the U.S. and Europe to “refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalisation of trade and economic relations with Iran.” Section 33 commits them to “agree on steps to ensure Iran’s access in areas of trade, technology, finance and energy.” The Trump administration has likely been violating these clauses. The Washington Post reported that at a NATO summit last May, “Trump tried to persuade European partners to stop making trade and business deals with Iran.” Then, in July, Trump’s director of legislative affairs boasted that at a G20 summit in Germany, Trump had “underscored the need for nations … to stop doing business with nations that sponsor terrorism, especially Iran.” Both of these lobbying efforts appear to violate America’s pledge to “refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalisation of trade and economic relations with Iran.”

The Trump administration may have committed other violations as well. Section 22 of the deal specifically obliges the United States, subject to some restrictions, to “allow for the sale of commercial passenger aircraft and related parts and services to Iran.” To do business with Iran, any U.S. company—or even any foreign company that gets more than 10 percent of its components from U.S. companies—must get a permit from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC must certify, for instance, that the transaction isn’t with an Iranian company designated under other U.S. sanctions programs such as those targeting terrorism. And under the Obama administration, OFAC began issuing these permits, albeit slowly. In November 2016, for instance, OFAC allowed the sale of 106 planes by Airbus to Iran Air. But since Trump took over, notes Al-Monitor, “requests concerning permits to export planes to Iran have been piling up … OFAC has not responded to aircraft sales licensing requests since the first of such licenses were issued during the Barack Obama administration.” Erich Ferrari, a lawyer in Washington who works on sanctions issues, told me there’s “definitely been a shift. Certain transactions that we’ve seen licensed in the past under the Obama administration, are now being denied.” The Trump administration still issues licenses for routine personal divestment transactions: for instance, people who want to sell off their property or close their bank accounts in Iran. But as far as Ferrari can tell, the Trump administration has issued few, if any, licenses for commercial transactions. That’s hard to verify: There is no public database of OFAC licenses, and the Treasury Department didn’t respond to my request for comment. But in recent months, two close observers of the Iran deal have echoed Ferrari’s observation. As the pro-nuclear deal National Iranian American Council’s Reza Marashi reported earlier this year, “To hear senior Western diplomats tell it, the Trump administration has not approved a single Iran-related OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) license since taking office.” If true, this too likely violates the Iran deal.

We’ve seen a version of this movie before. In 1994, the Clinton administration signed a nuclear deal with North Korea. Pyongyang promised to freeze its nuclear program. In return, the U.S. promised to provide “heavy fuel oil” to compensate for the electricity North Korea would lose by shutting down its plutonium reactor; to help build an entirely new, “light water” reactor; and to move toward normalizing relations. But that November, Republicans—many of whom were skeptical of the deal—took control of the House and Senate. And in the following years Congress hindered both America’s promised delivery of fuel oil and its promised help in building a light-water reactor. The North Koreans warned that if the U.S. didn’t abide by the deal, they wouldn’t either. And they didn’t. While North Korea mostly met its promises not to build a bomb using plutonium, it secretly operated an alternative nuclear program based on enriched uranium. Whether North Korea cheated in response to U.S. cheating, or intended to cheat all along, is a subject of debate. Either way, the Bush administration in 2002 confronted Pyongyang about its uranium-enrichment program. North Korean officials conceded its existence, while falsely claiming the deal covered only the plutonium route to a bomb. And they proposed a new, more comprehensive agreement, which would also cover uranium enrichment and require the U.S. to recognize North Korea, stop threatening it militarily, and lift sanctions. But the hawks in the Bush administration, who had opposed the 1994 deal from the beginning, refused to negotiate seriously. As John Bolton explained, the uranium-enrichment program “was the hammer I had been looking for to shatter the Agreed Framework.” Now Bolton is back, and looking for another hammer. If Trump stops him from wielding it, and the U.S. doesn’t reimpose nuclear sanctions on Iran, many in the media will celebrate America’s decision to continue complying with the nuclear deal. But that will be wrong. The Trump administration has never fully complied with the nuclear deal, and likely never will. The real question isn’t whether Trump violates it, but how. The truth is that, at least in the post-Cold War era, the United States hasn’t always been very good about keeping the promises it makes in nuclear deals. It’s important Americans know that. It might be nice to think that the U.S., as a democracy, is more trustworthy than its authoritarian adversaries. But America’s government won’t hold itself to a higher standard unless its people do.</s>RIYADH (Reuters) - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday on a hastily-arranged visit to the Middle East as the United States aims to muster support for new sanctions against Iran.

The visit to Riyadh, Jerusalem and Amman just two days after Pompeo was sworn-in comes as President Donald Trump is set to decide whether to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that is still supported by European powers.

“We are urging nations around the world to sanction any individuals and entities associated with Iran’s missile program, and it has also been a big part of discussions with Europeans,” Brian Hook, a senior policy advisor traveling with Pompeo, told reporters.

Hook said a salvo of ballistic missiles fired into Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi movement that killed a man earlier on Saturday had been provided by Tehran.

“Iran’s missiles prolong war and suffering in the Middle East, they threaten our security and economic interests and they especially threaten Saudi Arabia and Israel,” he said.

The 2015 deal that limits Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief does not cover its missile program.

Trump has called it the “worst deal ever” and threatened to re-impose sanctions unless Britain, France and Germany agree to fix it. Resuming sanctions would likely kill the deal.

Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France, which all struck the accord with Iran and the United States, see the deal as the best way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

Speaking after a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Friday, Pompeo said Trump had not taken a decision on whether to abandon the deal but was not likely to stick to it without substantial changes.

“There’s been no decision, so the team is working and I am sure we will have lots of conversations to deliver what the president has made clear,” Pompeo told a news conference.

Earlier this week French President Emmanuel Macron called on Trump not to abandon the deal, although he later acknowledged he thought he would pull out.

The Trump administration is also currently reviewing the U.S. role in fighting Islamic State in Syria’s seven-year conflict. Trump has called on Gulf countries to provide funding and troops to stabilize areas once controlled by the group in Syria.

Pompeo was one of the first Trump administration officials to visit Saudi Arabia early in his tenure as CIA director.

In Riyadh, Pompeo was greeted on the tarmac by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. He is expected to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and King Salman during the visit.</s>Tens of thousands of secret files and other evidence proves the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is "based on lies and Iranian deception" and should be thrown out, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday.

Netanyahu, in an address televised across Israel, said Iran lied when it said it never sought to develop nuclear weapons, then cheated by failing to reveal all its weapons program information to an international watchdog group charged with monitoring the deal.

"Even after the deal was made, Iran continued to preserve and expand its nuclear know-how for use at a later date," Netanyahu said.

President Trump has said he will announce within the next two weeks the fate of the deal. He has repeatedly blasted the pact, demanding that changes be made to tighten rules governing Iran.

Trump, speaking at a White House news conference minutes after Netanyahu spoke, expressed solidarity with the Israeli leader. He also would not dismiss the possibility of negotiating a new deal — an option Iran has flatly rejected.

"In seven years that deal will have expired and Iran is free to go ahead and develop nuclear weapons. Seven years is tomorrow," Trump said. "I am not saying what I am doing, (but) it's a horrible agreement."

More: Trump tussles with German chancellor Merkel over Iran and trade

The deal, struck between Iran and six world powers — the U.S, Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany — was negotiated by the Obama administration. The deal led to easing of a broad range of economic sanctions placed on the Shiite nation.

Netanyahu, who bitterly opposed the deal, spoke in English, a clear sign he wanted to present his case to an international audience. He said "half a ton" of evidence proves Iran has not been faithful. He said the deal provides Iran with a clear path to building a nuclear arsenal in the future. He said Iran has always planned "at the highest levels" to continue to work on the program.

"This is a terrible deal," Netanyahu said. "In a few days time, President Trump will make his decision. ... I am sure he will do the right thing, the right thing for the United States, the right thing for Israel and the right thing for peace in the world."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who met with Netanyahu in Israel on Sunday, accused Iran of "behaving worse" since the deal.

Pompeo accused Iran of destabilizing the Middle East by supporting terrorist groups, ruthless Houthi rebels in Yemen and the brutal regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“We remain deeply concerned about Iran’s dangerous escalation of threats to Israel and the region — and Iran’s ambition to dominate the Middle East,” Pompeo said after meeting with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. “The United States is with Israel in this fight.”</s>NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) - Friday’s historic pledge by the leaders of the two Koreas to work to denuclearize the Korean peninsula should give U.S. President Donald Trump a stronger hand to renegotiate the treaty curtailing Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s intelligence minister said.

Israel Katz, who runs both the Intelligence and Transportation ministries, spoke in a Reuters interview after North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to work for a “complete denuclearization” of the peninsula at a summit meeting in Seoul.

Such a development, should it come to fruition, could have a larger impact of minimizing the threat of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, Katz said.

The 2015 Iran Nuclear agreement, which Israel’s government vehemently opposed, is in danger of unraveling should U.S. President Donald Trump decide by May 12 to restore U.S. economic sanctions against Iran.

Trump has called the accord the worst deal ever negotiated and threatened to reimpose the U.S. penalties unless Britain, France and Germany can fix its “flaws.” The deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran in return for curbing its nuclear program.

“He (Trump) will have more power against Iran now and maybe to convince the European Union not to be the weak link in the coalition,” Katz said.

“I think it will be very good if the North Koreans will finish and go out of the nuclear business and capabilities. It will also be good to our region, because there is a connection,” he said.

Katz said the connection between Iran and North Korea pertains to missile technology.

“Yes, I think there is cooperation as it belongs to developing the ballistic missiles. And we have the evidence,” he said.

“We have a lot of evidence,” Katz added, shrugging his shoulders without elaborating.

Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France, which all struck the accord with Iran and the United States, see the deal as the best way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

During his state visit earlier this week with Trump in Washington, French President Emmanuel Macron called for the U.S. not to abandon the deal and said a new package of terms was being prepared with Britain and Germany.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a one-day working visit with Trump on Friday, where she was careful to praise Trump’s progress on North Korea.

“I think that now we have to be very tough with Iran,” said Katz, who wants to succeed Netanyahu as Israel’s next prime minister.

While Iran’s nuclear capabilities are curtailed for the time being, Katz reiterated that Israel would remain vigilant in seeking to curb Tehran’s increased activities in Syria.

On April 9, an air strike killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members at a Syrian base. Tehran blamed Israel and vowed unspecified retaliation, drawing Israeli counter-threats to broaden attacks on Iranian military assets in Syria.

The Israelis have said their strikes aim to prevent Iran’s garrison in Syria from entrenching itself deeper in support of President Bashar al-Assad and linking with Hezbollah in Lebanon to form a broad front against them.

“Iranians don’t have to be in Syria. It is not to say we are going to attack every Iranian soldier in Syria, but bases, military bases, and munitions bases, and sophisticated missiles and other things like that? Yes,” he said.

Russia, a key ally of Assad, has said it would provide advanced weapons to Syria. Israel is concerned that might include the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which military analysts say would improve Russia’s ability to control air space in Syria.

“They are talking about to supply advanced missiles, but they didn’t say the words S-300,” Katz said.

“Personally, it is hard for me to believe that Putin will give them the S-300,” he said. “Because this is his main card that he is holding now in the discussions with Israel ... If he will give them the S-300, about what can he talk about with us afterward?” (Reporting by Daniel Bases Editing by Tom Brown)</s>Putin, Macron, agree on need to preserve Iran nuclear deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron agreed in a phone conversation on the need to preserve and fully implement the Iran nuclear deal, the Kremlin said in a statement on Monday, Reuters reports.

The phone call took place at the initiative of the French administration, the Kremlin statement said.

Follow Trend on Telegram. Only most interesting and important news</s>TEL AVIV — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday brushed off concerns that a decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal could derail nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

“I don’t think Kim Jong Un is staring at the Iran deal and saying, ‘Oh goodness, if they get out of that deal, I won’t talk to the Americans anymore,’” Pompeo told reporters traveling on his plane en route from Saudi Arabia to Israel. “There are higher priorities, things that he is more concerned about than whether or not the Americans stay in the [agreement].”

Pompeo is the highest level U.S. official to have spoken with North Korea’s leader. On his maiden voyage overseas as secretary of state, Pompeo has repeatedly warned that President Donald Trump will walk away from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran if it is not strengthened with “fixes” dealing with Iran’s ballistic missile testing and other issues.

Potential talks with North Korea about abandoning its nuclear weapons were expected to be an incentive for Trump to stay in the Iran deal, so as not to make Kim distrustful of U.S. intentions.

Pompeo’s dismissal of that notion, however, suggests that Trump won’t consider it much of an obstacle, either.

“I am confident that Kim Jong Un is looking for more than a piece of paper,” Pompeo said.

Rather, he added, “He’s going to look for aligning our interests, right? Setting up what we talk about as concrete, irreversible actions, assurances that … if we are able to be successful achieving this, that it will be lasting.”

Pompeo was scheduled to talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later Sunday before heading to Jordan.

Iran’s activities and ambitions are at the center of his talks in the Middle East. Just before leaving Riyadh, Pompeo tore into the Iran nuclear deal made by the Obama administration, declaring it a failure.

“Unlike the prior administration, we will not neglect the vast scope of Iran’s terrorism,” Pompeo said at Riyadh’s airport.

Pompeo cited Tehran’s activities support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad and cyberhacking of its adversaries.

“The nuclear deal has failed to moderate the regime’s conduct in many areas,” Pompeo said, reading from written remarks and taking no questions from reporters. “In fact, Iran has only behaved worse since deal was approved.”

The 2015 nuclear agreement does not address Iran’s behavior in non-nuclear matters. Negotiators argued it was less dangerous to confront Iran on those issues if the potential threat of nuclear weapons was minimized. U.S. officials have been talking with European allies who helped strike a deal to come up with a “supplemental” fix.

So far, Pompeo has expressed positions that are similar to those of his immediate predecessor, Rex Tillerson, who was unceremoniously fired last month.

One noticeable difference is the frequency with which Pompeo mentions Trump by name in almost all his public remarks.

Follow the Bangor Daily News on Facebook for the latest Maine news.</s>Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the Iran nuclear deal, saying it was based on lies.

He said Iran lied about never having a nuclear weapons program. He added that Iran continued to expand it program.

Netanyahu said Iran lied again in 2015 when it didn't come clean to the International Atomic Energy Agency, as required by the deal.

Netanyahu said Israel has 100,000 "secret files that prove" that Iran lied.</s>Israel's prime minister has accused Iran of secretly pursuing a nuclear programme amid rising tensions in the Middle East.

Unveiling a shelf full of files purporting to show that Iran is "brazenly lying" when it says it does not have a nuclear programme, Benjamin Netanyahu gave a special presentation on Monday claiming to present "conclusive" evidence of the "secret programme".

His presentation came against a backdrop of sustained efforts by the US administration and its allies at home and in the Middle East to cancel, or at least renegotiate, the 2015 nuclear pact signed between Iran and the US, France, Russia, Germany, China, the UK and the European Union.

"You may well know that Iran's leaders repeatedly denied ever pursuing nuclear weapons ... well tonight I'm here to tell you one thing; Iran lied, big time," Netanyahu said during his presentation. 

 

 He claimed that after signing the nuclear deal, Iran intensified its efforts to hide files pertaining to its nuclear programme.

"A few weeks ago, in a great intelligence achievement, Israel obtained half a tonne of the material inside these volts," Netanyahu said before proceeding to show "fifty-five thousand pages" and another "fifty-five thousand files on 183 CDs".

Before Monday's announcement, Netanyahu cancelled a speech in parliament and convened an emergency meeting of his security cabinet at Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu has been a leading critic of the agreement, saying it fails to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons capability.

He has also welcomed US President Donald Trump's pledges to withdraw from the Iran deal if it is not changed.

The developments come as Mike Pompeo, the newly appointed US secretary of state, has been voicing concern while touring the Middle East about what he calls Iranian influence in the region.

Pompeo has described Syria's seven-year civil war as an area where Iran has gained territory in the region.

Iranian experts say the real issue is not Tehran's nuclear programme, and that even if it were taken out of the picture, "Iran would still be demonised and made evil" by its regional adversaries - similar to what has been happening, they argue, since the 1979 revolution.

"The root causes of Israeli and Western animosity towards Iran has to do with its opposition to Western hegemony in the region and its support and sympathy with the Palestinian people," Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera recently.

"Iran's key foreign policy objectives since the 1979 revolution were its moral stance against the South African apartheid and its solidarity with the Palestinian people."

Earlier on Monday, a war monitoring group and an Iranian news agency said a missile attack overnight on government outposts in northern Syria killed more than a dozen pro-government fighters, many of them Iranians.

There was no official confirmation of the death toll or what was the target, but the strikes prompted speculation on who carried it out, with most reports suspecting Israel was behind it.

Syrian state TV called it a "new aggression on military positions" in Hama and Aleppo provinces but was not specific.

Activists said there was a spectacular explosion at an arms depot and military compounds where Iranian fighters are based.

Iranian media gave conflicting reports: One semi-official news agency said there were no Iranians killed, while a second one said 18 were killed.</s>CNN National Security Analyst John Kirby is a retired rear admiral in the US Navy who served as a spokesman for both the State and Defense departments in the Obama administration. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

In a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the most credible, measured and thoughtful member of the President's national security team said he believes the deal struck by President Obama to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons is in our best interest.

That's James Mattis, by the way, the secretary of defense.

In case you missed it, here's the exchange:

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine: "Do you believe it is in our national security interest at the present time to remain in the JCPOA? That is a yes or no question."

JCPOA stands for Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, colloquially known as the Iran nuclear deal.

The man responsible for ensuring our military's readiness to defend the country just made clear that he believes one way to accomplish the goal is to keep the Iran deal in place.

Not to quibble, but the deal binds Iran to a permanent commitment never to pursue nuclear weapons. It's true that certain restrictions begin to ease after a period of time. But the inspection regime lasts forever. If Iran ever tried to cheat, we'd know about it and all the nuclear-related sanctions that were lifted could be snapped right back in place.

Last week, Dunford also told senators he worried about the impact to our credibility if the United States precipitously pulled out of the deal. In what could have been a nod to North Korea, he said , "It makes sense to me that our holding up agreements that we have signed, unless there is a material breach, would have an impact on others' willingness to sign agreements."

It's hard to see how in the wake of all this -- from his top military leaders, no less -- President Trump could pull out of the deal, much less refuse to certify next week that Iran remains in compliance, right?

That's basically a "bake-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" scenario that will no doubt make the President feel good but stop well short of terminating the actual deal.

He no doubt believes he must do something. But that something should be nothing.

Assuming it will do so again in the near future, Mr. Trump's decision to decertify Iran on his own would fly in the face of the IAEA's considered, scientific and professional assessment - not that he has shown much care in the past for the views of other international bodies. As we've seen, it would also contradict the opinions of his own generals.

But, there's a political base to please and a predecessor's legacy to tear down and so much blustery rhetoric to live up to. So soon, perhaps even today, we will learn what the administration has in mind.

Whatever that is, one must hope Mr. Trump also bears in mind these things:

1) No problem in the Middle East gets easier with a nuclear-armed Iran. The deal is doing exactly what it was designed to do. There are plenty of ways to address Iran's other "misconduct," as Secretary Mattis calls it.

2) The hardliners in Tehran would love to see nothing more than the deal ripped up. So, finding a way to damage it hands the mullahs a nice little victory.

3) It was nuclear-related sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table. If we snap them back unilaterally and without cause, we, the United States -- not Iran -- would be in noncompliance and on the outside of international convention.

And we -- not Iran -- would be the ones sending a clear message that we are neither a credible nor trustworthy negotiating partner.

As Gen. Hyten put it: "Everybody's watching us wherever we are, and everything we do down to the smallest tactical level in today's world delivers a strategic message to not just the United States and our citizens, but our allies and our adversaries."

It's time to send the right strategic message. It's time to stop arguing over the Iran deal. It's time for Mr. Trump to listen to his generals.
A member of Iran's Expediency Council calls on the European Union, Russia and China to support the deal and guarantee economic and banking relations with Iran. He warns that Iran would likely exit the deal if it doesn't benefit Iran.