Trump's decision on Iran is not as black and white as it seems

European leaders will look for any chink of light in Donald Trump’s announcement on the Iran nuclear deal to argue that it is still alive and can be salvaged in the months ahead.



The US decision on Iran is often seen in Manichean terms of whether Trump pulls out of the agreement or not. This is partly because Trump, unlike his predecessor, does not believe his political base warms to nuance. A president who communicates in 280 characters does not trade in shades of grey.

Q&A Why does Donald Trump want to scrap the Iran nuclear deal? Show Hide Donald Trump’s victory in US election in November 2016 put the fate of the deal in doubt. He had promised prior to his election to “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran”, although many believed he might instead adopt a more rigorous implementation of the agreement and tighten sanctions already in place. This could force Tehran to violate first or make the deal redundant.

In January, he reluctantly waived a raft of sanctions against Iran as required by Congress every 120 days, but said “this is a last chance” and asked “European countries to join with the United States in fixing significant flaws in the deal”. The congressional deadline Trump faces this time is on 12 May, but he tweeted on Monday that he will announce his decision by Tuesday. Trump believes the agreement is a bad deal, which falls short of addressing Iran’s regional behaviouror its missile programme. He is emboldened by a group of Iran hawks in his inner circle, such as the national security adviser, John Bolton, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. Read a full explainer here

But the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a subtle document that allows for all kinds of fudge if Trump’s advisers choose to take that course. The 2016 US guidance accompanying the original agreement was 42 pages.

The specific decision Trump is required to take by 12 May is whether to renew a waiver on a set of oil sanctions first implemented in January 2012. Removing the waiver will not immediately lead to the imposition of sanctions, but it would mean companies, including banks, having to show over the next 180 days that they are reducing their trade in Iranian oil by significant amounts.

In 2012, the US Department of State was charged with defining “significant amounts” in terms of barrels of oil a day, and the Obama administration chose a 20% reduction over an 80-day period.

Companies or countries that do not comply will then face sanctions. In addition, all oil payments and any other transactions with the Iranian central bank would be required to go into escrow accounts.

Play Video 2:11 What is the Iran nuclear deal? – video

Waivers on further, broader sanctions against Iran covering insurance, shipping, transportation and finance do not come up for renewal until 11 July, said Richard Nephew, a former principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the state department.

It was open to Trump to reimpose all sanctions immediately, and even add new ones, Nephew said. But if the US president takes a step-by-step removal of sanctions as waiver deadlines fall, EU diplomats have up to six months to negotiate with Iran, with the proviso that Tehran chooses not to decide a US refusal to renew the waiver represents a withdrawal from the JCPOA and justifies the renewal of its nuclear programme.

The JCPOA is open to such interpretation since it is not a treaty, but a political agreement. Jarrett Blanc, a former Obama administration lead on Iran, said: “It does not have any formal provisions or procedures for withdrawal. A participant in the deal may simply cease complying with its obligations.”

So even if Trump interpreted the lifting of the waiver as a US withdrawal, the EU could still try to keep the deal going on a life-support machine.

Play Video 1:17 Trump likely to scrap Iran deal, says former White House negotiator – video

The EU has been planning for such a scenario in private for months, although it has been reluctant to discuss the bloc’s thinking in public, preferring to focus all its energies on spelling out the dangers of a US withdrawal for peace in the Middle East.

The former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw, who is broadly sympathetic to Tehran’s moderate wing, argues that it is possible for the EU to continue to trade with Iran by blocking any US sanctions on European banks that trade with Iran.

If Trump destroys the nuclear deal, Iran will fall to its hardliners | Saeed Kamali Dehghan Read more

He says it is possible for the EU to pass legislation stating that any US sanctions on European entities trading with Iran are null and void. The EU did much the same in protest at the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act passed by the US Congress in 1996. The EU passed a blocking statute, arguing as a matter of principle that it was wrong for the US to impose sanctions that had an extra-territorial effect.

But this is largely uncharted territory. It would broaden an EU-US foreign policy dispute into a transatlantic economic confrontation. Only EU banks with no interests in the US are likely to take the risk that the bloc can protect them from massive fines imposed by the US Treasury. The residual anti-Iran sanctions currently in force have already put a chill on nervous EU companies from trading with Iran.

Trump is hardly likely to impose sanctions on a sworn enemy and then cheerfully let Europe undermine them.

But some EU diplomats hope there is time to draw Trump back by showing it is possible to address his concerns on Iran’s ballistic missile programme or behaviour in Yemen. They point to dispute resolution clauses in the deal as another way of deferring a total breakdown. The most senior UN diplomats believe Iran is not as heavily invested in backing the Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia as is often portrayed. Progress in Yemen might lead Trump to postpone.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Politicians involved in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal pose for a picture in Vienna in July 2015. Photograph: Joe Klamar/AP

Europe’s chances of acting as an honest broker between Trump and Iran also depend on moderates holding sway in Tehran. Nephew said: “[The Iranian president, Hassan] Rouhani is already starting to take an awful lot of heat for the technocrat who failed, technically.

“He’s supposed to be the guy who’s the steady hand, who can come in and right the ship of the economy, of the politics, of international affairs. The combination of economic instability and the JCPOA being damaged will badly damage his standing inside the country, and that can certainly empower the hardliners.”

Jake Sullivan, Obama’s senior adviser during the Iran negotiations, also warned a US withdrawal would weaken protests against the government in Iran, where there is anger over jobs and living standards. “The west was no longer an effective excuse for the regime in Tehran for the economic travails that their citizens are facing,” he said. “The people just weren’t buying it. But if the United States pulls out while Iran is still complying with the deal, that excuse will once again become available.”

Nevertheless, Rouhani, would like to keep the deal alive with the EU, and the other signatories apart from the US. He said on Tuesday that if the US left the agreement, Iran “will face some problems for two or three months, but we will pass through this”.

Many diplomats will admire his optimism.