Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump Just Came Very Close to Killing the Iran Deal

At the last minute, the president nearly told Tillerson not to certify Iranian compliance.

July 18, 2017 at 9:00 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Playing the long game.
Photographer: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Under President Barack Obama this kind of thing was routine. Since the Iran nuclear deal was reached in 2015, every few months the State Department would inform Congress that the Tehran government was in compliance.

Then Donald Trump was elected president. He had campaigned against the agreement, and many of the top aides he brought into the White House believed the Obama administration had turned a blind eye to Iran's regional predations to secure a bargain that in the end was harmful to U.S. national security.