Despite howls of protest by the Left, the foreign-policy establishment, and European leaders, and contrary to misleading assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies, it is now clear that President Trump’s decision last May to withdraw the United States from the controversial 2015 nuclear deal with Iran (the JCPOA) was the right call and is a huge policy success.
Trump’s JCPOA withdrawal did not lead to war with Iran, as many critics predicted. Instead, Iran is far more isolated than it was when President Trump assumed office. The United States has worked to unite its Middle East allies, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia, against Iran and, in Warsaw this month, will co-chair an international conference with Poland on the threat from Iran. Iran’s economy is under unprecedented pressure thanks to reimposed U.S. sanctions, especially oil sanctions, with negative 1.5 percent growth in 2018 and an expected negative 3.6 percent growth in 2019. Iran’s current year-on-year inflation rate through last month was 40 percent.
Some Trump critics predicted that any effort by the president to reimpose U.S. sanctions lifted by the JCPOA would have little effect, since other parties to the agreement — in particular the EU, Germany, France, and the U.K. — would not follow suit. But numerous European companies have resisted pressure from their governments to defy reimposed U.S. sanctions. On January 31, European leaders announced a special finance facility to help European firms skirt U.S. sanctions on Iran, but that initiative is months behind schedule and few experts believe it will work.
Instead, as a result of reimposed U.S. sanctions, European airlines Air France, British Airways, and KLM ended service to Iran last year. European companies Total, Siemens, and Volkswagen also withdrew from Iran, along with U.S. companies GE, Boeing, and Honeywell and the Russian oil firm Lukoil. In November, Germany’s Bundesbank changed its rules so it could reject an Iranian request to withdraw 300 million euros from Hamburg-based trade bank Europäische-Iranische Handelsbank, to protect the central bank’s relationships with institutions in “third countries.” That is, the United States.
Before the U.S. withdrawal, JCPOA critics made strong arguments about the accord’s weaknesses, especially Iran’s refusal to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors access to military sites. The lone exception is the Parchin military base, self-inspected by Iranians. There the IAEA obtained evidence of covert nuclear-weapons work. There were other credible reports of Iranian cheating before the U.S. withdrawal, including several from German intelligence agencies. Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, and David Perdue raised Iranian noncompliance and cheating on the JCPOA in a July 2017 letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
JCPOA supporters rejected those criticisms, noting that the IAEA repeatedly declared Iran to be in compliance with the nuclear agreement. However, they refused to admit that the IAEA reached its compliance findings by claiming that Iranian violations were not “material breaches” and by not asking to inspect Iranian military facilities (which Tehran has declared off limits) even though they are the likely locations of covert nuclear-weapons work.
A disturbing report concerning the Arak reactor arose late last month when Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s nuclear agency, claimed that Iran did violate the JCPOA by disabling the reactor and filling it with cement, and that Iran secretly acquired banned equipment to keep the reactor functional. If true, this would mean Iran fooled the JCPOA parties and IAEA inspectors on a major compliance issue. The IAEA has not commented publicly on the matter.
At last week’s worldwide-threat briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the U.S. intelligence community reported that Iran is technically complying with the JCPOA, a finding that reflects both the IC’s history of liberal bias on assessments of weapons of mass destruction (as seen after the Iraq War as well) and the failure of the Trump administration to take steps to clean out key intelligence offices that were stacked with analysts who favored Obama-administration policies during the last administration. At National Review Online in 2015, I wrote about a CIA official who tried to pressure me to support the agency’s pro-Obama line on Iran’s nuclear program even though I had left the CIA and was working for the House Intelligence Committee staff.
JCPOA backers also prefer not to discuss the fact that Tehran can advance its nuclear-weapons program without violating the agreement, since the accord allows Iran to improve its capability to make nuclear-weapons fuel — that its, to enrich uranium with over 5,000 centrifuges and develop advanced centrifuges. Moreover, although the agreement required Iran to disable its Arak heavy-water reactor (a source of plutonium), which was under construction, under the JCPOA a new heavy-water reactor will be built that will be capable of producing one-fourth of a weapon’s worth of plutonium per year. That arrangement will enable Iran not only to gain knowledge on how to build and operate heavy-water reactors but also to have access to plutonium, the ideal fuel for nuclear weapons.
June 17, 2019 — Iran threatens to violate nuclear deal
That would be the Iran Nuclear Agreement that Donald Trump unilaterally dumped over one year ago, on May 18, 2018.
So what did Trump expect? That he could abandon our end of the agreement, but Iran would continue to accept all of the restrictions it imposed upon them? Is that how things worked in the business world?
He needlessly screwed up an agreement that had effectively side-tracked Iran’s nuclear program for several years, and has progressively escalated tensions in the region to the point where a war with no clear objective is now a distinct possibility. So, there’s your “clear success”. We’re now in a far more dangerous situation and there’s no good reason for it.
@Greg: Who says they already havent, but they can take their enriched uranium and stuff it up the mulahs …turban.
Iranian compliance with the terms of the agreement was being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Commission. As would be expected, cooperation has fallen off since Trump announced our withdrawal.
@Greg: Cold it be Kerry telling them not to cooperate? hes a traitor or he wouldnt have been appointed by Barry https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2018/09/12/john-kerry-admits-to-meeting..
@Greg: Iran threatens to make their violations public. They’ve never honored this worthless deal which no one even bothered to sign, much less put it before Congress for approval. It was worthless from its inception.
Except for the facilities they weren’t allowed to inspect. And, of course, before any inspections, the Iranians had the opportunity to clean the site. And some sites they were allowed to inspect themselves. Oh, this deal was iron-clad. Tough. And we made them take all those billions and support terrorism with it or Obama would be very, very angry.
@Deplorable Me, #105:
Compliance by Iran with the terms of the agreement was being verified. Anti-Obama zealots were just never willing to take in this information, which is incompatible with their alternate reality. Nor was the agreement supposed to be put before Congress for approval, because it was an executive agreement rather than a formal treaty. Was the Bush Administration’s Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq that locked Obama into a timetable for troop withdrawal put before Congress for approval? It most certainly was not. Do you think the agreement was inconsequential?
That their military bases would remain off limits was part of the agreement to begin with. Perhaps something was there, or perhaps not, but we knew already where the now-exported Iranian uranium stockpiles were, where the now destroyed plutonium reactor core was, and where 13,000 centrifuges that were shut down were. It’s an established fact that the agreement we had was accomplishing far more than no agreement at all—which Trump has now demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt. If you want verification, look at the news.
June 27, 3019 —Pentagon sending 1,000 U.S. troops to Middle East after oil tanker attack
That will be viewed as a provocation. Because it is.
A war with Iran would be stupid. It would be very dangerous. It would accomplish nothing worth the cost, in either lives or money, and it would be vastly more difficult to contain or end than it would be to avoid to begin with.
Try repeating this until it finally sinks in.
@Greg:
Yeah… verified by Iran. Only an idiot trusts Iran. Only an idiot makes a handshake deal with Iran and expects them to abide by it.
Exactly. Not a good agreement at all.
Exported by the same people who said they removed all of Syria’s chemical weapons. Remember how that turned out? That’s probably where the uranium Hillary sold to the Russians so she could get richer went as well.
Only the left is pushing war with Iran. Only the left is wringing their hands over their imaginary impending war. But, the investigations into the treachery against the nation at the hands of Democrats will continue.
FOX News, June 20, 2019 — US Navy drone shot down by Iranian missile over Strait of Hormuz in ‘unprovoked attack,’ central command says
Unprovoked? Every step on the path to war follows on something that preceded it, until you’re locked onto disaster like a guided missile. Nobody is asking the right question: What would the likely outcome be?
There are no steady hands on the tiller. If there were, we would back off before this suddenly spins out of control. No one would benefit from a war with Iran except for our adversaries—and the Saudis, of course, who aren’t really our friends.
@Greg: Again, “The enemy of my country is my friend.”
Set aside your insane hatred of Trump simply for defeating fat, drunk, lying, criminal, incompetent Hillary for a moment and support your country.
@Deplorable Me, #109:
I have come to accept that some people see no benefit in asking the right questions.
Has it ever occurred to you that wanting to avoid another potentially disastrous, enormously expensive war that has no clear objective and no clear path to any sort of beneficial resolution might actually be support for one’s country?
That’s a simple-minded political meme that Trump is trying to sell to his supporters.
Democrats bad; Democrats hate country.
Trump good; Trump save country!
Trump best thing since George Washington.
It pathetic that this works.
@Greg:
Has it ever occurred to you that MOST want to avoid any war, but don’t think we should allow any two-bit despot to take advantage of us, as this only encourages MORE provocation and would lead to far more dangerous situations? No, apparently not. All that occurs to you is another opportunity to blame Trump for a situation he has not created but must deal with.
Reading the comments on the NYT stories, most ALL liberals take Iran’s word that the drone had intruded on their airspace even though the evidence shows otherwise. They, like you, would rather hate Trump than support our country. It’s not a meme or a slogan; it’s a FACT.
Iran is encouraged by the belief that no matter what they do, there will be opposition to Trump and he will lose support, providing the hope that another weakling will gain office and they will, again, have an open path to nuclear weapons and their stated goal of hitting Israel with them. Just as with the Democrats’ support of Russia’s goal of weakening trust in our electoral process, so do they support any adversary as long as they can voice common displeasure with Trump.
Grow the f**k up.