Anticipating an unpredictable president's next moves, U.S. officials have started actively planning for the likelihood that President Donald Trump will announce that the United States is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal next month.
The deal signed between Iran and world powers in 2015 was designed to curb Iran's nuclear aspirations in exchange for lifting debilitating economic sanctions. Trump and other opponents of the deal contend that it does not do enough to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear and other military capabilities.
Trump has threatened repeatedly to pull the U.S. out of the deal if it is not amended, but no one knows what would happen if he does or how Iran would respond.
With less than five weeks until Trump's mid-May deadline, national security officials are exploring various "day after" scenarios, including how to sell a withdrawal as the correct strategy, how to reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran, and how to deal with Iranian and European fallout, according to officials, diplomats and outside advisers to the administration.
The planning is still in the early stages but has now taken on greater urgency. Another catalyst is the anticipated arrival of two new Trump cabinet members strongly opposed to the deal: Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.
Pompeo, the CIA director nominated for the position of secretary of state, was briefed last week on the Iran deal by top State Department aides, including policy planning chief Brian Hook and deputy assistant secretary for Iran Andrew Peek, U.S. officials said.
Both Pompeo and Bolton, who takes over next week as Trump's national security adviser, have been highly critical of the nuclear deal, and their appointments seemed to signal that one of former President Barack Obama's signature foreign policy achievements may soon be history.
Another complicating factor is Trump's stated desire to withdraw U.S. personnel and resources from Syria, which many Iran hawks believe will cede the country to Iran. Leaving Syria may force Trump's hand on the nuclear deal, according to hawks.
Iran has said U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal and the reimposition of sanctions would destroy the agreement, and has threatened a range of responses, including immediately restarting the nuclear activities currently barred under the deal.
U.S. sanctions that were lifted in exchange for Iran curbing its nuclear program fall into several baskets, including some that can be restored by executive order and some that would require congressional action. Some sanctions target Iranian entities exclusively while others punish third-party companies for doing business with Iran.
One option being considered by the Treasury Department, which enforces sanctions, would be to immediately snap back sanctions that do not need action from Congress, but delay their enforcement by four to six months, according to sources familiar with the matter. That would give companies and governments time to prepare to comply with the changes. It would also keep the door open for last-minute changes that may address Trump's concerns.
Another option would be to reimpose U.S. sanctions but carve out certain exemptions that could allow Europe and Iran to remain in the agreement without U.S. participation. It would then be up to Iran to decide whether the benefits of a deal that no longer includes the U.S. would be valuable enough to keep it alive.
The planning effort has also been spurred by increasing signs that U.S.-European negotiations to address what Trump says are flaws in the agreement are deadlocked and unlikely to produce an outcome acceptable to the president before May 12. Complicating those talks is uncertainty over what might actually persuade Trump to stay in the deal, which he has called the worst ever negotiated by the United States. Diplomats involved in those discussions are increasingly pessimistic that a viable compromise is possible.
"We've gone from a strategy of decertify, fix the deal and pressure Iran in the region to what increasingly appears to be one of decertify, nix the deal and withdraw from the region," said Iran deal critic Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who has pushed for tightening the accord.
Working to salvage the deal, France, Britain and Germany have been trying to persuade their fellow EU members to agree to new non-nuclear sanctions on Iran, including some related to Iran's actions in Syria, a European diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The goal is to tee up a "package" of actions to present to Trump as evidence that the Europeans are taking his concerns about Iran seriously and demonstrating willingness to act. Several nations have objected, arguing that it is illogical to make concessions to Trump when it is unclear that will be enough to keep him in the deal.
The nightmare scenario for the Europeans is that they would go out on a limb by adopting sanctions they do not really want only to see Trump walk away from the nuclear deal anyway, the diplomat said.
On two of Trump's concerns – Iran's ballistic missile testing and its destabilizing behavior in the region – the U.S. and Europe have largely reached a consensus that Iran can and should be punished.
But the U.S. and Europe remain far apart on Trump's third concern: the "sunset provisions" that gradually allow Iran to resume advanced nuclear work after several years.
Trump is demanding that those restrictions be extended or made permanent, but Iran and the Europeans argue that this would be unworkable and would be tantamount to renegotiating the deal, which they have vowed not to do. Both sides have offered possible compromises on the sunset provisions, but none have yet been approved, according to diplomats.
