“This agreement remains important for our shared security,” said Britain’s Theresa May, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel in a joint response to the Trump announcement. Critically, the international nuclear weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have attested formally as recently as last month that Iran has not breached the deal. Even Trump’s own Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in his then capacity as CIA director, confirmed in a Congressional hearing just last month that Iran has complied with the agreement. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed Iran had complied with the agreement while he was CIA director. Credit:Bloomberg It’s not the “mad mullahs” that have violated the 2015 arrangement, a deal that de-fanged Iran’s nuclear weapons capacities in return for the easing of international economic sanctions against it. It is the US President who is the revisionist here.

Indeed, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says that Iran will talk to the other signatories to try to keep the agreement alive without the US. “The Iranian people are more united and resolute,” Rouhani said in a nationally televised address. “Trump’s move was a psychological war and economic pressure. We won’t let him win this war.” Even if the deal is somehow kept in place without America, Trump’s decision still sends three unmistakable messages to the world. First, Trump puts politics and his own political self-interest ahead of peace and security. The Iran deal has been opposed vociferously by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he carries much of the US Republican party with him. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed the Iran deal. Credit:AP

The deal is unpopular with Republican voters. Trump is catering to them in an effort to keep the support of his base and the support of the Republicans in Congress who are his ultimate protection against any possible impeachment. Second, there is zero consistency in Trump’s thinking on even the weightiest matters. So at the very time he is seeking a deal to constrain North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, he has exuberantly rejected one that is constraining Iran’s. Third, Trump’s decision demonstrates that he doesn’t care about the interests of America’s allies. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Indeed, “history may recall it as the day the US abandoned its belief in allies,” in the words of Edward Luce of Britain’s Financial Times.

But hold on. Israel is a US ally too. If Netanyahu opposes the Iran deal, doesn’t that mean it’s bad for Israel’s security? In which case, isn’t Trump right to revoke US support? While Netanyahu hates the Iran agreement, Israel’s military and security chiefs have a fundamentally different view. Israel’s Chief of the General Staff, Gadi Eizenkot, last month said: “Right now the agreement, with all its faults, is working and is putting off the realisation of the Iranian nuclear vision by 10 to 15 years.” Last week, 26 former top-ranking military and security officers published a joint letter to their fellow Israelis: “American abandonment of the agreement would undermine not just the deal, but Israel’s security as well.” Netanyahu wants the US to take a more aggressive line on Iran by abrogating the nuclear deal, but the preponderance of Israel’s security establishment thinks this is retrograde for Israel. Netanyahu is not a reliable adviser on US military strategy – he also urged George W. Bush to invade Iraq, one of the great strategic blunders. And, if it turns out that the deal cannot hold without the US, then Iran will be unshackled. As the lead US negotiator on the deal, Wendy Sherman, put it to me: “How could it possibly be in our national interest to risk Iran resuming its ambitions for nuclear weapons? How does that improve our security?”

Not only does that risk arise, but the moment the deal ceases to operate, the IAEA inspectors lose all access to Iran. Its research capabilities would go dark to the outside world. The potential unleashing of a nuclear-armed Iran is bad enough. The loss of the US as a sane force for stability is even worse.