Trumps strategy on Iran nuclear deal - full speech

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Trump Pulls Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal

Explained Trump Pulls Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, What Happens Next?
U.S. president Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal vowing new and 'powerful' sanctions on Iran

Haaretz and Reuters May 08, 2018
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque, Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

Donald Trump and Hassan Rohani

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday vowing to restore U.S. economic sanctions on Tehran, a move Iran vows will effectively kill the Obama-era Iran nuclear accord.

In late April, in an effort to save the deal, French President Emmanuel Macron offered Trump a "new deal" in which the United States and Europe would tackle the outstanding concerns about Iran beyond its nuclear program.

Macron used a three-day state visit to the United States as a high-stakes bid to salvage the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which many in the West see as the best hope of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear bomb and heading off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

Under Macron's proposal, the United States and Europe would agree to block any Iranian nuclear activity until 2025 and beyond, address Iran's ballistic missile program and generate conditions for a political solution to contain Iran in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long called specifically for cancelling a core "sunset clause" that removes caps on Iran's nuclear projects after a number of years.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani however appeared to immediately throw cold water on Macron's efforts.

“I have spoken with Macron several times by phone, and one time in person at length. I have told him explicitly that we will not add anything to the deal or remove anything from it, even one sentence. The nuclear deal is the nuclear deal,” he said during a conference in the northwestern city of Tabriz the day after Macron announced his "new deal." He suggested Macron has no right to amend an agreement signed by seven nations.

“As long as our interests are guaranteed we will remain in the deal, whether the U.S. remains or not,” Rohani said. But he added that “if our benefits are not guaranteed, we will not remain in the deal, no matter what the circumstances are.”

It was unclear what that would mean for the fate of the 2015 accord and whether the other countries that signed it, such as China and Russia, would agree to new measures against Iran. However, Macron later dampened expectations saying he still expected Trump to pull out of the deal based on Trump’s past statements.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to also make a case for the accord during a lower-key visit to the White House. A German foreign ministry spokesman took a hard line ahead of the visit saying, "The nuclear agreement was negotiated with 7 countries and the EU and can't be renegotiated... but it is also clear that beyond the nuclear agreement we want to make sure that Iran's nuclear programme serves exclusively peaceful purposes."

Iran’s ‘three options’

In a news conference broadcast on state television in late April, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was ready for some "surprising actions" if the nuclear deal was scrapped.

Answering a question about the possibility of Tehran withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Shamkhani said: "This is one of three options that we are considering." What exactly the other two options are was left unclear, but Rohani has said Iran will ramp up its nuclear programme if the deal collapses.

Rohani also warned Trump to stay in the nuclear deal.

"I am telling those in the White House that if they do not live up to their commitments...the Iranian government will firmly react," Rohani said in a speech .

"If anyone betrays the deal, they should know that they would face severe consequences," he told a cheering crowd of thousands gathered in the city of Tabriz. "Iran is prepared for all possible situations," he added.

Earlier in April, Rohani said Iran would make or buy any weapons it needed to defend itself in a region beset by "invading powers," as the military paraded missiles and soldiers in front of him on National Army Day.

Fighter jets and bombers flew overhead as Rohani told the Tehran crowd and a live TV audience that Iran's forces posed no threat to its neighbors.

"We tell the world that we will produce or acquire any weapons we need, and will not wait for their approval ... We tell our neighbouring countries that our weapons are not against you, it's for deterrence," Rohani said.

What the U.S. gains by pulling out

Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) and a former Pentagon official, laid out the argument for Reuters for why Trump should withdrawal from the treaty: If Trump doesn’t withdraw based on a European faux-fix, it would severely weaken the United States’ standing with Iran and globally.

Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA offers other clear benefits. It would reinstate nuclear-related economic sanctions that could — if other countries to fall in line — pressure and isolate Tehran, and weaken its regional aggression.

Longer term, withdrawal offers more freedom to the United States, Israel or others to act militarily against Iranian nuclear facilities, if that becomes necessary.

The difficulty of Trump restoring sanctions on Iran

There are at least two avenues potentially offering more time for talks after May 12, difficult as that may seem given that Iran has strongly warned against reviving sanctions.

The agreement has a dispute resolution clause that provides at least 35 days to consider a claim that any party has violated its terms. That can be extended if all parties agree.

And if Trump restores the core U.S. sanctions, under U.S. law he must wait at least 180 days before imposing their most draconian consequence: targeting banks of nations that fail to cut significantly their purchases of Iranian oil.

Source: Haaretz and Reuters

Full Transcript of Trump’s Iran Nuclear Deal Speech

Read the Full Transcript of Trump’s Iran Nuclear Deal Speech
May 8, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and is preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the accord. The administration is planning to impose additional economic penalties as well.

The decision unravels the signature foreign policy achievement of his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and isolates the United States from its European allies.

The following is a transcript of his announcement, delivered from the Diplomatic Room of the White House.
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PRESIDENT TRUMP: My fellow Americans,

Today, I want to update the world on our efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror. It exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies and militias such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Over the years, Iran and its proxies have bombed American Embassies and military installations, murdered hundreds of American service members, and kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured American citizens.

The Iranian regime has funded its long reign of chaos and terror by plundering the wealth of its own people.

No action taken by the regime has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear weapons — and the means of delivering them.

In 2015, the previous administration joined with other nations in a deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. This agreement was known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A.

In theory, the so-called “Iran deal” was supposed to protect the United States and our allies from the lunacy of an Iranian nuclear bomb, a weapon that will only endanger the survival of the Iranian regime.

In fact, the deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and — over time — reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.

The deal lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for very weak limits on the regime’s nuclear activity — and no limits at all on its other malign behavior, including its sinister activities in Syria, Yemen, and other places all around the world.

In other words, at the point when the United States had maximum leverage, this disastrous deal gave this regime — and it’s a regime of great terror — many billions of dollars, some of it in actual cash — a great embarrassment to me as a citizen and to all citizens of the United States.

A constructive deal could easily have been struck at the time, but it wasn’t.

At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction: that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program.

Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie. Last week, Israel published intelligence documents — long concealed by Iran — conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons.

The fact is, this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.

In the years since the deal was reached, Iran’s military budget has grown by almost 40 percent — while its economy is doing very badly. After the sanctions were lifted, the dictatorship used its new funds to build its nuclear-capable missiles, support terrorism, and cause havoc throughout the Middle East and beyond.

The agreement was so poorly negotiated that even if Iran fully complies, the regime can still be on the verge of a nuclear breakout in just a short period of time. The deal’s sunset provisions are totally unacceptable.

If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs.

Making matters worse, the deal’s inspection provisions lack adequate mechanisms to prevent, detect, and punish cheating and don’t even have the unqualified right to inspect many important locations, including military facilities. Not only does the deal fail to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it also fails to address the regime’s development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads.

Finally, the deal does nothing to constrain Iran’s destabilizing activities, including its support for terrorism.

Since the agreement, Iran’s bloody ambitions have grown only more brazen. In light of these glaring flaws, I announced last October that the Iran deal must either be renegotiated or terminated.

Three months later, on January 12th, I repeated these conditions. I made clear that if the deal could not be fixed, the United States would no longer be a party to the agreement.

Over the past few months, we have engaged extensively with our allies and partners around the world, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. We have also consulted with our friends from across the Middle East. We are unified in our understanding of the threat and in our conviction that Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon.

After these consultations, it is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. In just a short period of time, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.

Therefore, I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

In a few moments, I will sign a presidential memorandum to begin reinstating U.S. nuclear sanctions on the Iranian regime. We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction. Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States.

America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail. We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. And we will not allow a regime that chants “Death to America” to gain access to the most deadly weapons on Earth.

Today’s action sends a critical message. The United States no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises, I keep them. In fact, at this very moment, Secretary Pompeo is on his way to North Korea in preparation for my upcoming meeting with Kim Jong-un. Plans are being made, relationships are building. Hopefully, a deal will happen, and with the help of China, South Korea, and Japan, a future of great prosperity and security can be achieved for everyone.

As we exit the Iran deal, we will be working with our allies to find a real, comprehensive, and lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear threat. This will include efforts to eliminate the threat of Iran’s ballistic missile program, to stop its terrorist activities worldwide, and to block its menacing activity across the Middle East.

In the meantime, powerful sanction also go into full effect. If the regime continues its its nuclear aspirations, it will have bigger problems than it has ever had before. Finally, I want to deliver a message to the long-suffering people of Iran.

The people of America stand with you.

It has now been almost 40 years since this dictatorship seized power and took a proud nation hostage. Most of Iran’s 80 million citizens have sadly never known an Iran that prospered in peace with its neighbors and commanded the admiration of the world.

But the future of Iran belongs to its people. They are the rightful heirs to a rich culture and an ancient land, and they deserve a nation that does justice to their dreams, honor to their history and glory to God.

Iran’s leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate a new deal. They refuse, and that’s fine. I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people.

When they do, I am ready, willing, and able. Great things can happen for Iran. And great things can happen for the peace and stability that we all want in the Middle East. There has been enough suffering, death, and destruction. Let it end now. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you.

Source:Transcript By The New York Times