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Trump Withdraws US From Iran Nuclear Deal (nytimes.com)

President Trump on Tuesday announced he is withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, a historic accord signed in 2015 that aims to limit Tehran's nuclear ability for more than a decade in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions against the country. "This was a horrible one-sided deal that should never, ever been made," Mr. Trump said at the White House in announcing his decision. "It didn't bring calm, it didn't bring peace, and it never will." The New York Times reports: Mr. Trump's announcement, while long anticipated and widely telegraphed, plunges America's relations with European allies into deep uncertainty. They have committed to staying in the deal, raising the prospect of a diplomatic and economic clash as the United States reimposes stringent sanctions on Iran. It also raises the prospect of increasing tensions with Russia and China, which also are parties to the agreement.

One person familiar with negotiations to keep the accord in place said the talks collapsed over Mr. Trump's insistence that sharp limits be kept on Iran's nuclear fuel production after 2030. The deal currently lifts those limits. As a result, the United States is now preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the nuclear accord -- and impose additional economic penalties as well, according to another person briefed on Mr. Trump's decision.
Despite Trump's decision, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would remain committed to a multinational nuclear deal. "If we achieve the deal's goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place. [...] By exiting the deal, America has officially undermined its commitment to an international treaty," Rouhani said in a televised speech. "I have ordered the foreign ministry to negotiate with the European countries, China and Russia in coming weeks. If at the end of this short period we conclude that we can fully benefit from the JCPOA with the cooperation of all countries, the deal would remain," he added.

12 of 900 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ben Rhodes admitted lying to sell it by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

    New York Times Magazine [nytimes.com] piece where Ben Rhodes explained how he led the administration’s efforts to misrepresent the truth in order “to sell” the JCPOA to the press.

    That's not what the article says, at all.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  2. Re: Nice by Nidi62 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You know our own SecDef and head of the joint chiefs of staff came out and said Iran is abiding by the terms of the deal?

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  3. Re:Nice by SirSlud · · Score: 5, Informative

    The UN observers, US Secretary of Defense and the joint chiefs of staff are satisfied that Iran is following the terms of the agreement. You're so desperate to believe that Iran is doing stuff in secret, *somehow*, that it becomes an easy chip to play for political gain for Trump. It's almost too easy.

    --
    "Old man yells at systemd"
  4. Re:Nice by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    We already knew they had a nuclear program and lied about it, so that's not news. Israel is trying to whip people like you into a froth with some old facts. They have nothing new of interest whatsoever.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. Re:Nice by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't think this was a treaty, just an agreement. Congress didn't approve it. Which made congress at the time very very angry, but then the president as executive can abide by the agreements anyway and doesn't need permission from congress to remove the sanctions or insist on inspections. However without congress this agreement doesn't have force of law, and the next president can overturn the agreement on a whim. The executive branch decides on foreign policy, not congress.

  6. Re:Nice by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have no opinion on this issue specifically, but it is indeed possible that the person you are talking to could indeed be smarter than all of Mossad and the CIA put together. And you probably are, too. Any organisation which actively rejects public scrutiny can very easily be far stupider than any single person who works for them.

    In the lead up to the Iraq war, our intelligence services were convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

    Cool story Bro. The people who were convinced were the Neocons running the country at that time. Turns out that was not an intel failure, but a lie.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  7. Re: Nice by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 3, Informative

    One can conclude only that either your ignorance is wilful in nature, or that you just don't read.

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    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  8. Re:Nice by quantaman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Exactly right. Had Obama wished to make the deal permanent, he needed to go to the Senate to have them ratify it. Since the Senate at the time was controlled by Republicans he was in no mood to negotiate with

    Your take-away from the Obama administration is that Obama was the one reluctant to negotiate with Republicans?

    Were you even paying attention?

    --
    I stole this Sig
  9. Re: Nice by crunchygranola · · Score: 3, Informative

    Several. Yeah. You know very few, and very little.

    The Late Great Planet Earth predicted in 1970 that the Apocalypse would occur within one generation of the founding of the State of Israel (and thus by 1988 by the reckoning of its author Hal Lindsay). It sold 28 million copies by 1990, and millions who read it believed Lindsay's every word (including my grandmother at whose home I read the book myself). She marveled at the fact that she was living at the "end of days".

    --
    Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
  10. Re: Good by gnick · · Score: 4, Informative

    This cash? It was already theirs. The bigger problem with that payment is that it looked a lot like a ransom.

    The $400 million was Iran's to start with, placed into a US-based trust fund to support American military equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted by a 1979 popular uprising that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic, the US froze the trust fund. Iran has been fighting for a return of the funds through international courts since 1981.

    In announcing the agreement, Obama said that paying the $400 million -- plus $1.3 billion in interest -- was saving American taxpayers billions of dollars. The Iranians had been seeking more than $10 billion at arbitration.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  11. Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 4, Informative

    The thing is America did not give its word, that requires the deal to be ratified by the Senate, and Obama clearly stated while he was negotiating the deal that he was not going to do that.

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    The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
  12. Re:Nice by greythax · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wow, what a nice little fairy tale. Let me tell you a real story. I was alive and old enough to remember the runup to IRAQ, and I was politically aware enough to watch the news. TONS of people knew Iraq had jack and squat. THere were NIGHTLY news stories about how the UN weapons inspectors, over and over again, weren't finding even hints of a nuclear program. In fact, when bush finally got his authorization of force, they had to hurry inspectors out who had been begging for time to finish yet another inspection trying to debunk the made up evidence.

    Evidence by the way that Cheney had to essentially create an office in the pentagon to come up with. After our intelligence continually told him over and over that it wasn't the case, he had to create a department to "find evidence at all cost". The most telling thing I remember was watching the state of the union and hearing bush say "...and a european intelligence report states that Sadam Hussien is actively seeking nuclear materials." I remember thinking "What do OUR intelligence agencies think about it? Why couldn't he cite them in the speech?"

    A few days later we learned why, the news started airing reports that our intelligence agency had long considered that particular report fiction. Even the days of the week didn't match up to the numeric dates!

    I don't know if you were a child or an early victim of fox news, but it was widely known by anyone paying attention that the Iraq war was being manufactured. There were protests, constant news reports, general skepticism.