Anticipating Trump's next move, aides prep Iran deal pullout
Matthew Lee and Josh Lederman,
Associated Press
prep Iran deal pullout
WASHINGTON (AP) — Anticipating an unpredictable
president’s next moves, U.S. officials have started actively planning for the
likelihood that Donald Trump will announce next month that the U.S. is
withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.
But no one knows exactly what would happen next
or how Iran would respond.
Still, with less than five weeks until President
Donald Trump’s deadline, national security officials are exploring various “day
after” scenarios. Those include how to sell a pullout as the correct strategy,
how aggressively to reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under
the agreement and how to deal with Iranian and European fallout from such a
step, according to officials, diplomats and outside advisers to the
administration.
The planning is at an early stage but has taken
on greater urgency as the clock ticks toward mid-May, when Trump has said he’ll
walk away unless his concerns are addressed. Another catalyst is the
anticipated arrival of two new Trump aides strongly opposed to the deal: Mike
Pompeo and John Bolton.
Pompeo, the CIA director nominated for secretary
of state, was briefed last week on the Iran deal by top State Department aides,
including Brian Hook, the policy planning chief, and Andrew Peek, the deputy
assistant secretary for Iran, U.S. officials said.
Both Pompeo and Bolton, who takes over next week
as Trump’s national security adviser, have been highly critical of the landmark
2015 nuclear deal, and their appointments seemed to signal that one of former
President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievements may soon be
history.
Another complicating factor is Trump’s stated
desire to withdraw U.S. personnel and resources from Syria, which many Iran
hawks believe will cede the country to Tehran. Leaving Syria to keep his
campaign promise of disentangling the U.S. military from the Middle East may
force Trump’s hand on the nuclear deal, according to hawks who have expressed
dismay at the president’s desire to pull back.
“I want to get out. I want to bring our troops
back,” Trump said Tuesday. “Sometimes it’s time to come back home.”
Iran has said U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear
deal and reimposed sanctions would destroy the agreement and has threatened a
range of responses, including immediately restarting nuclear activities
currently barred under the deal.
U.S. sanctions that were lifted in exchange for
Iran curbing its nuclear program fall into several baskets, including some that
can be restored by executive order and some that would require congressional
action. Some sanctions target Iranian entities only while others punish
third-country companies for doing business with Iran.
One option being considered by the Treasury
Department, which enforces sanctions, would be to immediately snap back
sanctions that don’t need action from Congress but delay their enforcement by
four to six months, according to people familiar with the matter. That would
give companies and governments time to prepare to comply with the changes. It
would also keep the door open for last-minute changes that could potentially
address Trump’s concerns.
Another option would be to reimpose U.S.
sanctions but carve out certain exemptions that could allow Europe and Iran to
remain in the agreement without U.S. participation. Then it would be up to
Tehran to decide whether the benefits of a deal that no longer includes the
U.S. would be valuable enough to keep it alive.
The planning effort has also been spurred by growing signs that U.S.-European
negotiations to address what Trump says are flaws in the agreement are
deadlocked and unlikely to produce an outcome acceptable to the president
before May 12. Complicating
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