TRUMP & THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WITHDRAWAL FROM THE IRAN DEAL

…The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini

The effects of pulling out of the Iran agreement could be devastating

Let’s take a look at what President Trump has said about pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  This is the multi-national agreement with Iran on stopping their development of nuclear weapons.

First I will list some of Trump’s comments about this deal, and then I will state what the truth is regarding the agreement.  As usual, what Trump says, and what is the truth, are in some cases, miles apart

So, here are some of the statements from President Trump:

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

·       “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 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.”

·       “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.”

·       “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 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.”

So, let’s take these statements one at a time:

>>> Did the JCPOA allow Iran to continue enriching uranium?

·       The JCPOA buys time, subjecting Iran to strong constraints on its nuclear activities for 10 to 25 years. Without the JCPOA, Iran could have hasten its development of nuclear weapons on an even shorter timeline than the one Trump found unsatisfactory.

>>> Are the “sunset provision” totally unacceptable?

·       The JCPOA’s prohibition on Iran’s building nuclear weapons does not sunset, and other international agreements to which Iran has committed itself also prohibit the development of such weapons.

>>> Will the world’s leading state sponsor of terror be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons?”

·       As some of the provisions in the JCPOA do become less strict with time, this won’t happen until ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years into the deal, so there is little reason to put those restrictions at risk today.

>>> Did this disastrous deal give this regime many billions of dollars, some of it in actual cash.

·       This relates to the settlement of a decades-old claim between the United States and Iran. In the 1970s, the pro-Western Iranian government under the shah paid $400 million for US military equipment. But the equipment was never delivered because the two countries broke off relations after American hostages were seized at the US Embassy in Iran.

     It was an unusual situation and there was an initial payment to Iran of $400 million in euros, Swiss francs and other currencies that landed in Iran in 2016, the same day Iran’s government agreed to release four American detainees, including The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian.

     The timing suggested that the cash could be viewed as a ransom payment, but the initial cash payment was just returning Iran’s formally frozen assets from decades past.

>>> Do we have definitive proof today that this Iranian promise [to stop nuclear weapons development] was a lie.

·       Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has committed itself to ratifying the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol in 2023. The former restricts Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons, and the latter grants international inspectors wide access to monitor nuclear-related activities within Iran’s borders.

     In agreeing to the JCPOA, Iran reaffirmed its commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and stated: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”

Last week, Israel published intelligence documents they said were long concealed by Iran, conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel announced that Mossad agents had obtained a massive cache of documents and data discs from Iran about “Project Amad,” a clandestine nuclear-weapons development program. Netanyahu said the documents proved that Iran had lied about its past nuclear efforts.

“What he is revealing with all this detail is not news,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told The Washington Post after Netanyahu gave a PowerPoint presentation laying out these findings. “The fact that Iran has experimented with nuclear warhead designs, and had at one point an active weapons program, makes it all the more essential that the JCPOA remains in place to prevent Iran from quickly amassing enough fissile material for even one bomb.”

But the documents produced by Israel mostly covered the pre-2003 period, during which Iran was already known to have been pursuing nuclear weapons ambitions.

This is all old news that all those involved with the JCPOA were all well aware of this information.

>>> Does Iran support terrorist proxies and militias such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda?”

·       This claim is not new for the president, and at least it has some truth. Trump has suggested the Iran assistance to al-Qaeda (AQ) to the present day. This is in line with the latest State Department Country Reports on terrorism, released in July 2017, which said: “Since at least 2009, Iran has allowed AQ facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through the country, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and Syria.” This phrasing marked a shift from previous reports, which indicated the support was only  in the past.

The point is that with the US pulling out of the deal, here’s what is expected to happen.

·       Part of the deal is that the US sanctions will again placed on Iran, they will also be placed on any country that does business with Iran.  That means that after the JCPOA was established, a number of US allies in Europe and elsewhere went back to doing business and making oil purchases from Iran.  So France, Great Britain, Canada, Australia  and Germany could also be hit with the same US sanctions.

·       You can probably expect that the price of gas at the pumps in America will be going up, and we could again experience those long lines for gasoline that we had back in the 1970’s.

·       This is going to cause insecurities within the countries in the mid-east and these other Muslim countries may start pursuing their own nuclear developments, just to keep up.

·       This could also cause the middle-eastern countries to begin their own wars between the Muslims and the Jews, and inter-Muslim conflicts between the Suni’s and the Shia’s.

Our not so bright president may have started something that could easily get out of hand as did those bizarre events that eventually caused the start of World War I.

Stay tuned, it’s going to get really hot before it cools off!

Copyright G.Ater  2018