Image credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

May 10, 2018

Here’s What to Expect Now That Trump Has Withdrawn From the Iran Nuclear Deal

By Richard Nephew and Ilan Goldenberg

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump fulfilled one of his campaign promises and took the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In doing so, he broke the United States’ commitment to implement the deal in good faith and, notwithstanding his positive words on future talks, imperiled the possibility of a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear issue by undermining U.S. credibility in diplomacy. The end result will be a weak sanctions regime, an Iran that over time violates its nuclear commitments, and a Middle East that becomes even more unstable than it already is.

Even by the Trump administration’s admission, Iran has been faithfully implementing the nuclear deal. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will almost certainly confirm this fact by the end of May, when it issues its next quarterly report on Iran. Thus, the nuclear crisis to come will not be Iran’s fault, but rather that of the Trump administration and those who prodded it to renounce the one mechanism in the past 35 years that has reliably constrained Iran’s nuclear program.

Read the Full Article at Foreign Policy


  • Commentary
    • March 22, 2023
    Sharper: Iraq

    It has been 20 years since the United States began Operation Iraqi Freedom, and over a year since the Biden administration transitioned from a combat mission to an advise-and-...

    By Anna Pederson

  • Commentary
    • The Economist
    • March 22, 2023
    Jonathan Lord on How America and the Middle East Continue to Look Past Each Other

    The American-led invasion of Iraq, which took place 20 years ago this week, set in motion a series of commitments to the Middle East, which have shaped the limits and tempered...

    By Jonathan Lord

  • Podcast
    • March 21, 2023
    Iraq 20 Years Later with Marsin Alshamary and Hamzeh Hadad

    In a special episode of Babel to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, Jon sits down with two Iraqi guests to talk about the aftermath of the U.S.-led in...

    By Hamzeh Hadad

  • Commentary
    • Lawfare
    • March 20, 2023
    Twenty Years Later, the U.S. Military Is Still Lost in Iraq

    Having done little to enable the Iraqi security forces to sustain their own capabilities, the Biden administration is setting the conditions for another strategic failure in I...

    By Jonathan Lord

View All Reports View All Articles & Multimedia