Donald Trump’s national security team has unanimously recommended that he decertify the Iran nuclear deal — but that he stop short of pushing Congress to reimpose sanctions on Tehran that could unravel the agreement.

Trump’s team plans to work with Congress and European allies to apply new pressure on the Iranian regime, according to a strategy developed in an Iran policy review led by national security adviser H.R. McMaster. But the strategy assumes the nuclear deal will remain intact for now.


The deliberations ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline to certify Iran’s compliance with the deal, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda, were described by a half-dozen sources inside and outside the administration who have participated in the internal debate.

As a candidate, Trump described the agreement as “catastrophic” and “the worst deal ever.” But the strategy represents a nuanced approach to one of the most important foreign policy decisions of his early presidency. The goal is to allow the president to demonstrate contempt for the agreement and broadcast a new level of toughness toward the Iranian regime — without triggering the international chaos several of his advisers warn would follow from a total withdrawal from the 2015 deal.

Administration officials cautioned that the strategy has not yet been finalized, and that it could change before the president makes an official announcement.

But Secretary of Defense James Mattis hinted at the approach early Tuesday when he told a congressional panel that he believes the deal is in America’s interest and that Trump should “consider staying in.” Appearing alongside him, Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the agreement has “delayed the development of a nuclear capability by Iran.”

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Though their rhetoric was far more positive about the deal itself than Trump's, it is consistent with a White House strategy of decertifying the agreement without pushing Congress to dissolve it through sanctions — and may preview an administration effort to signal to Congress and U.S. allies that Trump is not withdrawing from the deal.

Iran has warned that if the U.S. reimposes sanctions, Tehran might restart its nuclear program. Some experts and former Obama officials say that could begin a spiral toward possible military confrontation.

Congress requires the president to certify Iranian compliance with the deal every 90 days. International inspectors and Trump officials like Dunford say that Iran is meeting its technical obligations. But Trump must also declare whether the agreement remains “vital to the national security interests of the United States,” and he is unlikely to do so.

Under the law, Congress would then have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions lifted by the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in return for limits on Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump is expected to act as early as next week, though White House officials said an exact date has not been set. After he does, administration officials are expected to press Republican lawmakers not to reimpose nuclear sanctions, which would effectively unravel the agreement in the eyes of the Iranian government and many U.S. allies.

In return, Trump officials, led by McMaster, plan to reassure congressional Republicans — virtually all of whom opposed the deal — with a pressure campaign against Iran.

That campaign is at the heart of McMaster’s policy review, due Oct. 31, which has been conducted quietly as the debate over the nuclear deal has played out in public. The new policy is expected to target Iranian-backed militias and terrorist groups, including Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and the financial web that facilitates them.

Of particular focus will be the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the administration will designate as a foreign terrorist organization, the first time the military wing of a regime will have earned the label.

The IRGC is the country’s most powerful security organization but also controls large portions of the Iranian economy. The U.S. designated the IRGC’s elite Quds Force as a terrorist group in 2007, and the IRGC itself has been sanctioned for nuclear proliferation and for human-rights abuses. But the entire IRGC has never been designated a terrorist group.

Critics of the deal are taking a wait-and-see approach to the new strategy. "Just going after the IRGC, while certainly having a lot of virtues, it’s not a complete strategy. ... The IRGC has a very large presence in Syria. What are you going to do about that? You have to see how the pieces all fit together,” said Eric Edelman, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush administration.

Trump has twice certified Iran's compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal, first in April and then in July. But he bridled in July when advisers presented him with a binary choice of certifying or decertifying.

During an Oval Office meeting with Tillerson, McMaster and former presidential advisers Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, Trump unleashed a tirade in which he demanded more options and adamantly refused to recertify the deal. Tillerson and McMaster warned him that if he declined to do so, and Congress moved to reimpose sanctions, he would spend the rest of his term embroiled in a bitter debate over the merits of the agreement with allies and foes alike.

The president ultimately bowed to his advisers, but only after what one senior administration official described as a “knock-down, drag-out fight” that lasted several hours.

“If it was up to me, I would have had them noncompliant 180 days ago,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal shortly after the Oval Office meeting. “I think they’ll be noncompliant” by the next deadline, he said.

McMaster has worked for months to produce what White House officials consider a third option that avoids Trump’s previous frustration. Neither the White House nor the NSC responded to requests for comment.

“One of the options [presented to the president] is to decertify, continue to waive the statutory sanctions, slap on new non-nuclear sanctions, roll out a new strategy, and then make the case to the Hill that this is not the time to reinstate the nuclear sanctions and there will be a broader strategy to strengthen the deal,” said an Iran policy expert familiar with the administration’s thinking on the issue.

Mattis, McMaster and other administration officials privately complain that the Obama administration allowed the nuclear deal to distort its wider policy toward Tehran, and have told Trump it is possible to challenge Iran on other fronts without breaking the agreement.

Inside the administration, the debate pitted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who favored recertification, against others who subscribed to the views expressed by Mattis and McMaster. A smaller camp, including U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, pushed hard for decertification.

In the end, the recommendation from the president’s national security team, which last met about a month ago to discuss the issue, was unanimous. Though Tillerson continues to favor recertification, according to two administration officials, one said that he disagrees with the president on so many issues that he has learned to “pick and choose his battles.” When it became clear that the rest of the president’s advisers were coalescing around a third option, he opted to sign on.

The question is how congressional Republicans, particularly foreign policy hawks, will respond to the White House’s pleas. Administration officials have not yet begun making their case to GOP senators, many of whom campaigned against the Iran deal.

They include Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who, in remarks Tuesday evening to the Council on Foreign Relations, was to push Congress to “begin the work of strengthening it and counteracting Iranian aggression, with the threat of sanctions and military action if necessary,” according to advance excerpts of his remarks.