Trump Is Bringing the Iran Nuclear Deal Back to Life
The administration’s confused attempt to reimpose UN sanctions may end up helping Iran and Joe Biden.
The U.S. is in a box.
Photographer: Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images
President Donald Trump has done Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden a considerable favor by calling for “snapback sanctions” against Iran under a 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution. Biden and his surrogates have repeatedly pledged to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — from which Trump withdrew in May 2018. Having rightly driven a stake through the deal’s heart by withdrawing, however, Trump is now giving it diplomatic CPR.
The White House asserted on Aug. 20 that the U.S. was still a “JCPOA participant state” under Resolution 2231, and thus had standing to invoke snapback. Of course, when Trump left the deal, he directed the State Department to “take all appropriate steps to cease the participation of the United States in the JCPOA.”