US President Donald Trump’s attempts to undermine the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the six world powers would further isolate Washington on the world stage, says an analyst in Chicago.
Stephen Lendman, an author and radio host, made the remarks when asked about Trump’s first speech at the United Nations, where he attacked the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, reached between Iran and the P5+1 group—the US, the UK, France, Russia, China and Germany.
The Trump administration has been seeking a pretext to scrap or weaken the deal, which limits Washington’s abilities to put pressure on Iran.
Trump made clear his frustration with the landmark agreement during his debut UN speech on Tuesday, telling world leaders that Washington felt “embarrassed” for signing the JCPOA.
The Republican president described the agreement as “the worst and most one-sided transaction the US has ever entered into,” a characterization he often used during his presidential campaign.
“I don’t think that Trump has ever looked at the deal,” Lendman told Press TV on Friday. “I don’t think he knows what is in it, what it says, what it does and what it does not do.”
Describing Trump as a “right-wing extremist,” Lendman said Trump was only repeating things he heard from “other line-minded individuals in Washington and of course Israel, which is very hostile to Iran.”
Trump said earlier this week that he had made a decision on whether he was going to pull the US out of the nuclear deal but kept it a secret.
“I think the outcome of this one way or the other will be Trump would try to subvert the deal or undermine it,” Lendman argued.
“He will try to pull some stunts so that he can justify what he wants to do, pull out of the deal directly or indirectly,” he added. “If he does it, he will make America more a pariah state than it already is.”
Tehran has rebuked Trump’s rhetoric, with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif describing it as an “ignorant hate speech” that was “unworthy of a reply.”
Traditional US allies including France, Germany and the UK have also reiterated their commitment to the nuclear agreement.