MESOP NEWS TOP OF THE AGENDA – KURDISTAN / IRAN

Trump Expected to Decertify Iran Agreement

U.S. President Donald J. Trump is expected to announce in a speech scheduled for 12:45 p.m. EDT Friday that he will not recertify the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. Decertification will not immediately unravel the agreement, but reports indicate that Trump will ask lawmakers to establish “triggers” (NYT) under which sanctions would be reimposed if Iran takes certain measures related to ballistic missile or nuclear development. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned that any U.S. move to withdraw from the accord would drive Europeans “into a common position with Russia and China” (DW) against the United States.

ANALYSIS

“If the agreement is decertified, if the president of the United States says it’s no longer an agreement that’s in America’s national interests and nothing happens, then I think the deterrent capability of the United States is eroded, both congressional credibility and the executive branch credibility,” Ray Takeyh said in a CFR conference call.

 “These days, we cannot forget where America was before the breakthroughs of 2013 and 2015, which first froze the Iranian nuclear program and then rolled it back,” Ilan Goldenberg and Mara Karlin write for the Atlantic.

“Efforts to unwind or rewrite the accord will be a hard sell to the other nations that joined the U.S. in hammering it out in months of talks—not only Iran, China and Russia but also the U.K., France and Germany,” Nick Wadhams and Margaret Talev write for Bloomberg.