From the Sept. 25, 2017 issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
By LEE SMITH

THE WEEKLY STANDARD, SEP 19, 2017 – The Trump White House has yet to roll out its much-anticipated, comprehensive, government-wide Iran policy review, but administration principals have met over the last few weeks to iron out details regarding the nuclear deal with Iran, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. On September 14, as expected, Trump renewed the waiver that provides sanctions relief to Iran under the JCPOA’s terms, while the Treasury Department at the same time imposed new sanctions targeting supporters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

That recipe—waive nuclear sanctions while imposing other sanctions—is in keeping with the administration’s larger message about Iran, namely, that the problems the Islamic Republic poses go far beyond the nuclear program. These include support for terrorism and criminal enterprises, threats to strategic waterways, and ballistic missile development. The question still outstanding is whether that big picture will come to affect U.S. policy towards Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, where the Islamic Republic is further entrenching its position.

The next Iran deal milestone comes October 15 when the president must again certify to Congress—per the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act—that Iran is meeting the conditions of the JCPOA. Trump, who criticized the deal during his presidential campaign, is reportedly keen to decertify. In July he told the Wall Street Journal that “if it was up to me, I would have had [Iran] noncompliant 180 days ago.”

So far, though, he hasn’t done so, blaming his secretary of state for keeping him from making a command decision. And Rex Tillerson is trying to do so now. According to an Associated Press report last week, the State Department has already urged the president to certify Iranian compliance again and then go to Congress to fix the deal.

“The secretary of state and his staff have been working since the transition to play Trump for an idiot on Iran,” says one veteran Iran hand closely involved in the decertification debate. “During the first round of waivers and recertifications in April, they tried to slip it by the president as just a minor ‘technical’ issue that he didn’t have to worry about. The next time certification came up in July, they simply denied him any other option. This time they’re trying to entangle him in process.” (The 2015 law requires certification every 90 days.)

To ensure that Trump certifies in October, the State Department had tried to push a diplomatic process to tighten aspects of the deal, in partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Europeans. But they predictably rebuffed State’s efforts, as did Iran. The point of that proposal, as with the latest initiative to “fix” the deal, is to tie Trump down in a process that will prevent him from decertifying—the first step in dismantling the deal entirely.

So what are the president’s options for October? He can still tear up the deal entirely, a scenario endorsed by John Bolton and previously promised by Trump. Another option would be to decertify Iran’s compliance with the deal but not reinstate sanctions, not yet anyway. “Trump can decertify on the condition that the JCPOA is not in the U.S. national interest,” says Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a leading expert on the deal. “Then it goes to Congress for debate for 60 days where the president needs to lay out a persuasive case that this is not the time for Congress to reinstate sanctions and abrogate the deal.”

According to Dubowitz, this tactic not only puts Iran on notice but gives our European allies plenty of advance warning to develop a common policy on how to fix the fatally flawed nuclear deal. The preference is to do this together. But everyone needs to understand that the United States is prepared to reimpose sanctions instead of giving Iran patient pathways to nuclear weapons and ICBMs. “Europeans would prefer a common approach on Iran. They will always choose access to the $19 trillion U.S. economy over a $400 billion Iranian one,” says Dubowitz. “American coercive financial power, especially under Trump is real.”

On the other hand, says Dubowitz, “if the president certifies [Iran’s compliance with] the JCPOA again next month, he’ll lose credibility—with Democrats, Europe, never mind Iran and other interested observers, most notably North Korea and Russia. If he does certify yet again, he will have an uphill battle going forward to demonstrate that he is prepared to walk away and use all instruments of power to pressure Iran and permanently cut off its pathways to atomic weapons.”