President Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. LA Times/AP/EPA.
President Donald Trump pulls out of the Iran Deal and has issued new sanctions. LA Times. Trump said new sanctions would target Iran's energy, oil and banking industries. The action was praised by some US allies, like Israel and Saudi Arabia, while others, like France, the UK and Germany, condemned the action. Trump said that the current deal was useless because it did nothing to address Iran's ballistic missile program, it's support for terrorism and their major role in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
My Comment:
Zero surprise at this outcome. Donald Trump always hated this deal and campaigned on getting rid of it. It isn't surprising that he kept that campaign promise. It also seemed very clear that Trump was going to pull out after Israel's Benjamin Netenyahu gave a presentation showing Iran's nuclear capabilities were greater than previously realized.
The fact that the Iran Deal was Barack Obama's signature foreign policy act is also a major reason for getting rid of it as well. Trump has been doing a very good job of dismantling Obama's legacy and even John Kerry violating the Logan Act trying to save this deal was going to do nothing. Trump was elected on a mandate to go after Obama's legacy, such as it is, and he is keeping that promise.
I think Trump was just as upset about how this deal was made as he was about it's failures. Making a deal with a country that had just recently taken a bunch of sailors hostage was not acceptable. And giving Iran a pallet of cash for no reason was just embarrassing, especially since that money probably went to funding terrorists operating in Syria and Yemen.
Of course the Iran Deal was very limited in what it actually did. All it did was limit Iran's nuclear program. It didn't do anything about their ballistic missile program would could be used to attack Iran's neighbors with conventional or chemical/biological weapons programs.
More critically, it did nothing for Iran's activities in Syria and Yemen. In both cases Iran was threatening our allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran and Israel are on the brink of war due to the threatening actions Iran is taking in Syria. They are arming Hezbollah terrorists and have launched several violations in Israeli airspace.
Yemen is an even bigger problem as Iran has been supplying the Houthi rebels there with ballistic missiles, greatly increasing the scale and danger of the conflict. These missiles have been used to attack Saudi Arabia directly and it would be trivial for them to load a chemical or biological warhead.
Will new sanctions work? Well they seem to have worked with North Korea. Trump cracked down on them hard but gave them a chance to escape, thus leading to the current situation where a peace deal and the end of North Korea's nuclear weapons seem very likely. As that deal shapes up, perhaps Iran will see that the writing on the wall and will rein in their behavior as well.
I don't agree that this action will lead to war. If anything it may prevent one. Both Saudi Arabia and Israel were chomping at the bit to go to war with Iran because of their actions in Syria and Yemen. Though the danger has not passed, bringing back sanctions may placate both countries.
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