'Trump's opposition to Iran deal shows US cannot be trusted'

US President Donald Trump has in a strongly-worded address to the United Nations General Assembly expressed his opposition to the internationally-negotiated nuclear agreement with Iran, calling it an “embarrassment” and raising questions as to whether the US will choose to stay in the 2015 accord as one of the signatories. In his maiden UN speech, Trump also accused the Iranian government of exporting “violence, bloodshed and chaos.” Press TV has talked to Michael Springmann, author and former US diplomat, as well as Michael Lane, founder of American Institute for Foreign Policy, to get their opinions on the US president’s latest statements.

Michael Springmann believes that Trump’s “remarkably intemperate and questionable” speech at the UN General Assembly showed that he is totally out of touch with reality.

He also emphasized that any move on the part of Washington to renege on the nuclear agreement with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), indicates that the United States cannot be trusted and has no perspective at all on the past, present or future.

The Trump administration has desperately sought a pretext to scrap or weaken the nuclear agreement, which limits the US ability to pursue more hostile policies against Iran.

However, Washington’s European allies seek to prevent the collapse of the deal and are stepping up efforts to convince Trump not to abandon the accord.

PressTV-Trump: Iran nuclear deal an 'embarrassment' to US

In his first address to the United Nations, President Trump calls the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran an "embarrassment."

The analyst further noted that the US animosity towards Iran dates back to the 1953 coup against the government of then democratically-elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, who had played a key role in the country’s 1951 movement that resulted in the nationalization of the oil industry.

In August 1953, British and American intelligence agencies initiated a coup by the Iranian military, setting off a series of events, including riots in the streets of the capital Tehran, which led to the overthrow and arrest of Mosaddeq.

His overthrow, which is still given as a reason for the Iranians' mistrust of the UK and the US, consolidated the Shah's rule for the following 26 years until the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, led by Imam Khomeini, which toppled the US-backed monarchy.

“This business of hostility towards Iran is created out of thin air, out of the wishful thinking and the capabilities of neocons, militarists and Zionists,” the analyst said, reasoning that Washington has not fought a war with Iran, but it has fought against Germany, Japan and Vietnam and yet it has good relations with them.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Springmann maintained that Israel has far too much influence in the United States, adding that the principle problem with the American foreign policy is that the Department of State has no concept of what US interests are.

He went on to say that the United States and Israel have “permanent interests,” and both support “terrorism, authoritarianism and apartheid.”

Springmann warned that “seeing eye to eye with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is at best insanity and at worse highly dangerous.”

Meanwhile, Michael Lane, the other panelist, opined that Trump’s speech was the first step in a 30-day process to decertify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal.

“I think if you read between the lines, he made some very general phrases but not specifically backed them up with the evidence. I think in the next 30 days, you will see the Trump administration start to bring out one by one various things that they believe are violations of Iran of the JCPOA and leading to, in the middle of October, the likelihood that Trump would decertify Iranian compliance with the deal,” he said.

The analyst also asserted that Trump’s speech was not full of “the diplomatic niceties” that normally transact speeches at the UN General Assembly, adding that it was a very “direct” address in which the US president laid out in “very clear and undiplomatic words” his dislike for the JCPOA.

Lane further mentioned that Washington’s animosity towards Iran goes back to the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, adding that since then, the two countries have had “an adversarial relationship” and there have not been substantial steps in the direction of improving those ties.

In November 1979 and less than a year after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iranian university students seized the US embassy in Tehran.

The students believed the US mission had turned into a center of spying aimed at overthrowing the Islamic establishment in Iran. Documents found at the compound later confirmed these claims.

According to the analyst, the reason why Trump accuses Iran of destabilizing the region is because of the Islamic Republic’s intervention in Syria, as well as its support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement and Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah fighters.

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