Trumps speech regarding this topic has just ended- I'll likely add it in later.Reports suggest that Israel's Netanyahu has suddenly gone quiet. What more is there for him to say? - He got what he/Israel had wanted. The results he/Israel desired. I'm certainly he, and Israel's political class/military are all smuggly satisfied! Haaretz-Consider the bias in the article- As of now there isn't a lot of coverage regarding this 'decertification'
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce that he is “decertifying” the nuclear deal with Iran. In what is already a diplomatic process overloaded with obscure jargon – the agreement's full title is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which can mean anything – decertification is a relatively obscure feature. It was a requirement originally imposed by the Republican Congress that every 90 days, the administration certify that the JCPOA is in the United States' national interest and it is therefore still committed to it.Since his inauguration, Trump has already certified the deal twice, but this time he is expected to act otherwise and announce that Iran has acted against the spirit of the deal and that the U.S. no longer sees it in its interest to honor it.
Will decertification kill the Iran deal?
The short answer is no. By U.S. law the Iran deal is neither a formal treaty nor an executive agreement but a “non-binding political commitment.” It would take actual action to break the deal. The agreement will not be invalidated if the Trump administration says it is no longer in favor or committed to it.
Trump is not expected to announce concrete new steps against Iran on Thursday so for now, decertification is no more than an expression of intent. Furthermore, the U.S. is just one of eight signatories of the deal – along with Russia, China, Britain, Germany, France, the European Union and of course Iran. The remaining seven signatories who are still in favor of the deal could continue without the U.S.
Can Trump kill the deal?
Essentially, the Iran deal was an agreement through which the international community dropped the sanctions on Iran that were specifically related to its nuclear development in return for Iran's agreement to impose certain limits on its nuclear research and development, most crucially the level to which it enriches uranium. If the U.S. decided to reimpose nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, it would be in breach of the JCPOA. That wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of the deal.
Iran and the other signatories could decide to continue with the agreement, though Iran may demand to be compensated for the financial damage incurred by the U.S. sanctions. Trump signed the waiver on the Iranian sanctions last month. These waivers have to be extended every 120 days, so thus far, his administration is not taking action to kill the deal. Decertification, however, is a signal to Congress that it can now go ahead and impose the sanctions itself. Given the fractious relations between the White House and most Democrats and Republicans, along with the lack of any clear bipartisan consensus, it is still unclear whether this will happen before January, when Trump will have to sign the waivers once again – or else the sanctions will be reapplied automatically.
What will Trump’s decertification do to the Iran deal and the region?
Since the deal is still very much in Iran’s benefit and the diplomatic community adheres to it as an article of belief, the decertification almost certainly won’t kill the deal. It will, however, put its long-term future in doubt and may create additional pressure on Iran to both stick to the limitations of its nuclear program and perhaps even force it to curb its more overt actions in the region.
Is that a bad thing?
The problem with the Iran deal is not that it’s a bad deal, as Trump says. It creates a mechanism that keeps Iran from developing sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon. That’s a good thing. (notable bias alert)> The real problem is that the Obama administration and other cheerleaders for the agreement tried to sell it to the world as a major breakthrough for the Middle East, when in reality it solved only one problem – while emboldening Iran, together with Russia, to double down on its support for the mass-murdering regime of Bashar Assad in Syria as well as increasing its support for other murderous militias in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. If decertifying leads eventually to the collapse of the Iran deal, that would indeed be a bad thing. But Iran needs the deal more than any other nation and it won’t rush to abandon it. If the jeopardy that decertification brings increases pressure to curb Iran’s malignant influence in the region, it could turn out to be a positive development.< (notable bias alert)
As of ending this, I see there is more news forthcoming so there will be updates!
Flashback to 2015: P5+1 is a distraction. Early Seeds of Iranian destabilization cross the Turkish border
From earlier