The U.S. Can’t Have It Both Ways Over Iran

The Trump administration is attempting to have it both ways over the Iranian nuclear deal. In an effort to extend an international arms embargo on the Islamic Republic beyond its scheduled expiration in October, the State Department is preparing to claim that the U.S. remains a “participant state” in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Iran agreed with the world powers in 2015.

It has been nearly two years since President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from that deal, and started to impose harsh economic sanctions—periodically intensified—on the Islamic Republic. This has proved an effective tool to pressure other countries not to do business with Iran, even though United Nations-approved international sanctions on Iran were nominally eased when it signed the JCPOA.