President Donald Trump is keeping the United States in the Iran nuclear agreement, but he is “making a bunch of noise” to appeal to his base, says an American scholar and political commentator in Wisconsin.
“The problem of course is that Trump has no idea what’s in the deal. He doesn’t read anything,” Kevin Barrett said in an interview on Saturday.
“So what he’s doing, I think, is making a bunch of noise that allows him to continue to appear to his base as if he is sticking by his position, which has been very strongly opposed to the Iran nuclear deal,” Barrett added.
Trump on Friday extended the waivers of nuclear-related economic sanctions against Iran that were lifted under the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
However, Trump threatened to pull out of the deal in a few months if European allies did not fix its "terrible flaws."
"This is a last chance. In the absence of such an agreement, the United States will not again waive sanctions in order to stay in the Iran nuclear deal," he said.
The US president also suggested that the sanctions relief under the JCPOA be linked to other issues, including Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Iran says it will not accept any changes to the nuclear agreement and that it will "not take any action beyond its commitments."
“So Trump is running into problems with his own foreign policy establishment not to mention the rest of the world, which is certainly not interested in trying to renegotiate this deal much less junking it,” Barrett said.
“The sane people in the American establishment recognize that this Iran nuclear deal is very much in their interest, perhaps even more than it is in Iran’s interest,” he noted.
In three months, Barrett said, Trump will either “back down” and decide to stay in the deal as it is, or he will submit to “the crazies in around his administration” and withdraw from the historic accord.
If Trump withdraws from the JCPOA, “the rest of the world will continue to honor the deal” and “Iran’s position will actually be enhanced,” the analyst concluded.