In his last week as president Barack Obama urged the new Trump administration to measure the deal, implemented a year ago, ‘against the alternatives’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

At the start of his final week in the White House, Barack Obama issued a warning to the incoming Trump administration about the value of the nuclear deal with Iran.

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“The United States must remember that this agreement was the result of years of work,” read a statement released by the White House on Monday, which did not mention the new president by name.

The deal, the statement said, “represents an agreement between the world’s major powers – not simply the United States and Iran.”

The White House said the agreement, implemented one year ago on Monday, “must be measured against the alternatives – a diplomatic resolution that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is far preferable to an unconstrained Iranian nuclear program or another war in the Middle East.”

Trump has not been as outright hawkish on the deal as other leading Republicans, saying he could seek to renegotiate it instead of tearing it up entirely. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the Republican chair of the Senate foreign relations committee who Trump considered for secretary of state, said this month the deal would have to be strictly enforced, not scrapped.

Nonetheless, figures including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have expressed hope that Trump will abandon the deal, an eventuality a former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said would be a “disastrous”.

In an interview with the Times of London released on Sunday, Trump said he did not want to say “what I’m gonna do with the Iran deal”.

In a somewhat rambling rumination, he added: “I just don’t want to play the cards. I mean, look, I’m not a politician, I don’t go out and say, ‘I’m gonna do this’ – I’m gonna do, I gotta do what I gotta do …

“But I’m not happy with the Iran deal, I think it’s one of the worst deals ever made, I think it’s one of the dumbest deals I’ve ever seen … Where you give … $150bn back to a country, where you give $1.7bn in cash.

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“Did you ever see $100m in hundred-dollar bills? It’s a lot. $1.7bn in cash. Plane loads. Many planes. Boom. $1.7bn. I don’t understand. I think that money is in Swiss bank accounts.”

Trump was referring to Iranian assets unfrozen as part of the deal, and to reports of pallets of banknotes being loaded on to planes for transfer which became a running sore among rightwing media during the presidential election.

The White House statement, in contrast, offered a detailed telling of the terms of the deal, which were also agreed by France, Britain, Germany, China, Russia and the European Union and which it said had “rolled back the Iranian nuclear program and verifiably prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”.

“Instead of steadily expanding,” the statement said, “Iran’s nuclear program faces strict limitations and is subject to the most intrusive inspection and verification program ever negotiated to monitor a nuclear program.

“Iran reduced its uranium stockpile by 98% and removed two-thirds of its centrifuges. Meanwhile, Iran has not enriched any uranium at the Fordow facility nor used advanced centrifuges to enrich. In short, Iran is upholding its commitments, demonstrating the success of diplomacy.”

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Trump has criticised Obama’s response to other issues involving Iran, such as the capture in early 2016 of 10 US navy sailors in the Persian Gulf, and a statement after their release in which secretary of state John Kerry thanked the Iranian authorities.

At a rally in Florida in September, he said: “When they circle our beautiful destroyers, with their little boats and they make gestures at our people, that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water.”

The White House statement said the US had “remained steadfast in opposing Iran’s threats against Israel and our Gulf partners and its support for violent proxies in places like Syria and Yemen.

“We continue to be deeply concerned about US citizens unjustly imprisoned in Iran. And our sanctions on Iran for its human rights abuses, its support for terrorist groups, and its ballistic missile program will remain until Iran pursues a new path on those issues.

“There is no question, however, that the challenges we face with Iran would be much worse if Iran were also on the threshold of building a nuclear weapon.”