There's a funny piece from CNN today headlined, "Trump's Goals for Decertifying Iran Deal Remain a Mystery". The reporters ponder why President Trump would refuse to certify that Iran is complying with the JCPOA. They just cannot figure it out.
I've decided to give them a hint. President Trump cannot certify that Iran is complying with the JCPOA because the Iranians won't allow the inspections needed to determine that question. There's a list of things that Iran promised not to do anymore under the terms of the JCPOA. The agreement calls for inspections to take place to allow monitoring of Iranian compliance. When the agreement was signed, however, the Iranians announced that they would not allow inspectors to go to any Iranian military base. President Obama and his people did nothing about that; they accepted the idea that Iran could inspect itself. Since then, the US government and the other signatories to the JCPOA have gone along blithely accepting Iranian compliance even when there is a major question as to whether or not Iran has really done what it promised to do. Are there centrifuges spinning daily at Iran's various military installations? Maybe, we just don't know. And not only do we not know; President Trump doesn't know for certain. I'm certain that the CIA has told the President what they suspect to be the facts, but that's the same CIA who told President Bush about the WMDs in Iraq.
So what is President Trump's goal in refusing to certify Iranian compliance? Most likely it is that the President refuses to certify false information to Congress and wants Iran to start to actually comply with the JCPOA. Unlike Obama, President Trump wants actual deeds to matter more than just what gets said.
I've decided to give them a hint. President Trump cannot certify that Iran is complying with the JCPOA because the Iranians won't allow the inspections needed to determine that question. There's a list of things that Iran promised not to do anymore under the terms of the JCPOA. The agreement calls for inspections to take place to allow monitoring of Iranian compliance. When the agreement was signed, however, the Iranians announced that they would not allow inspectors to go to any Iranian military base. President Obama and his people did nothing about that; they accepted the idea that Iran could inspect itself. Since then, the US government and the other signatories to the JCPOA have gone along blithely accepting Iranian compliance even when there is a major question as to whether or not Iran has really done what it promised to do. Are there centrifuges spinning daily at Iran's various military installations? Maybe, we just don't know. And not only do we not know; President Trump doesn't know for certain. I'm certain that the CIA has told the President what they suspect to be the facts, but that's the same CIA who told President Bush about the WMDs in Iraq.
So what is President Trump's goal in refusing to certify Iranian compliance? Most likely it is that the President refuses to certify false information to Congress and wants Iran to start to actually comply with the JCPOA. Unlike Obama, President Trump wants actual deeds to matter more than just what gets said.
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