The Iran Nuclear Deal Is on an Unpredictable Course - The Atlantic - 0 views
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It now seems likely that Trump will end U.S. compliance with the nuclear deal on May 12, when the next deadline for extending sanctions waivers comes up. It is of course still possible that Trump will take advantage of European gestures—like an agreement to sanction ballistic-missile activity, vigorously enforce inspections, and seek a follow-on agreement—to claim to have “improved” the deal thanks to his negotiating prowess, but that remains a long shot. It was always fanciful to imagine that the Europeans were going to agree to make fundamental changes to the nuclear deal (as if it were somehow in their power to unilaterally revise it without the support of the other parties to the agreement, namely Russia, China, and Iran), which is why that approach always seemed to me to be a ploy to kill the deal and blame others for its demise.
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There are scenarios being discussed in which Washington abandons the deal in May but it somehow survives. For example, Trump could refuse to sign the sanctions waivers up for renewal, but agree to go easy on implementation, or give exemptions to firms in European countries who have signaled a willingness to work on a new deal. I suppose anything is possible, but it’s hard to see how that works. Whatever public or private pledges Trump makes, few European companies are going to invest in Iran or buy Iranian oil if U.S. law requires them to be sanctioned for doing so, and it is hard to see Iran abiding by the deal indefinitely if it accepts all of its constraints but gets none of the benefits.
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There’s also the risk that countries like China or India—or even some in the EU—ignore the new sanctions and continue to buy Iranian oil, which would mean that we’d have to risk a major international trade clash to try to enforce them, at a time when potential trade wars are already looming. And even if Trump surprises us and extends sanctions for another few months and the deal survives on life support, we would soon be back in the same place we are today, faced with a binary choice between accepting an unchanged deal and blowing it up. If anyone thinks Iran will just come back to the table to accept a “better deal” after the United States, alone, walks away from the current one, they have more faith in Tehran’s political flexibility than I do.
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