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The Obama administration is considering new measures in its final months in office to strengthen the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran, senior US officials said, with President-elect Donald Trump’s first appointments foreshadowing an increasingly rocky road for the deal.
Action under consideration to buttress the pact includes steps to provide licenses for more American businesses to enter the Iranian market and the lifting of additional US sanctions, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The effort to shore up the agreement was underway before the election and is not aimed at boxing in Trump, who opposes the deal, the officials said. Officials also acknowledged the proposals are unlikely to make the nuclear agreement more difficult to undo.
Trump’s first two picks for his national security team—retired Army Gen. Mike Flynn as national security adviser and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) as Central Intelligence Agency Director—are hardliners on Iran who have voiced opposition to the nuclear deal.
Trump transition team officials didn’t respond to questions about their plans for the agreement or the current administration’s efforts to shore it up.
During the presidential campaign, Trump talked at times of ratcheting up sanctions on Iran, but also said US companies shouldn’t be at a disadvantage in entering the Iranian market. “All of these countries are going to do business with Iran,” Trump said at a campaign event in September 2015. “They’re going to make lots of money and lots of other things with Iran...And we’re going to get nothing.”
Within the Obama administration, officials say they recognize that there is little they can do from a policy perspective if the incoming administration is determined to scuttle the accord. But they plan to make a forceful case to the president-elect’s team of the grim consequences they believe the US would face if it ended up being blamed for the agreement’s failure.
Under the deal, reached in July 2015, Tehran agreed to put limit on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of all international sanctions.
A senior US official argued “it’s very hard to tear up the deal” because US allies and partners, including Russia and China, are committed to it. But, the official said, the “most important thing we can do is show that it’s working.”
Administration officials said they haven’t yet begun conversations on the Iran deal with the officials Trump has deployed across the government to facilitate his transition into office. They also are unsure whether those Trump officials are the ones they need to persuade.
The picture they plan to articulate for Trump’s team is stark: If the agreement falls apart, and the US is blamed for its collapse, Iran would resume its nuclear program more aggressively.
Administration officials do not believe Trump would overtly pull out of the deal. Their concern is more that it would fall apart due to attempts by the incoming administration to renegotiate pieces of it, expanding sanctions against Iran unrelated to its nuclear program, or neglect.
Iranian officials have publicly accused the Obama administration of not doing enough to promote investment in Iran as part of the nuclear deal.
In response, Secretary of State John Kerry has met with European bankers to encourage them to go back into the Iranian market. The US Treasury also issued new investment guidelines for Iran that were seen as easing Iran’s ability to gain access to US dollars.
“The deal is under a lot of stress moving forward,” said Elizabeth Rosenberg, a former Treasury Department official who worked on the Iran deal who is now at the Center for a New American Security, a left-leaning think tank. “The greatest danger comes from the United States.”
She said perhaps Obama’s strongest check against the deal’s opponents is Congress, where many lawmakers are wary of overturning it outright.
The Obama administration has praised Tehran for abiding by the nuclear agreement. And Kerry has maintained a belief that Iran could emerge as a partner for the US in stabilizing the Mideast.
© Iran Daily 2016
