President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran in a dramatic announcement on Tuesday, abruptly restoring harsh sanctions in the most consequential foreign policy action of his presidency.
The agreement, which was negotiated by the Obama administration and co-signed by Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China, lifted most international economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for the Islamic republic's agreement to restrictions on its nuclear program and rigorous inspections to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
But Trump, a severe critic of the deal throughout his presidential campaign and his presidency, said in his televised address from the White House Tuesday that the deal is "defective at its core."
The administration said it would reimpose sanctions on Iran immediately but would allow a grace period for businesses to wind down activity.
Companies and banks doing business with Iran will have to scramble to extricate themselves or run afoul of the U.S. government.
"The Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror," Trump said in his address.
"It exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies and militias such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban and al-Qaida. No action taken by the regime has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them.
"In theory, the Iran deal was supposed to protect the United States and our allies from the lunacy of an Iranian nuclear bomb, a weapon that will only endanger the survival of the Iranian regime. In fact, the deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and, over time, reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.
"The deal lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for very weak limits on the regime's nuclear activity, and no limits at all on its other malign behavior."
He criticized the Obama administration for creating the deal, saying that "at the point when the United States had maximum leverage, this disastrous deal gave this regime many billions of dollars."
The deal is "a great embarrassment to me and to all citizens of the United States," he said.
Trump also touched on Israel's recent revelation of how Iran deceived the international community as to the nature of its nuclear program.
"At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program," he said. "Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie. Last week, Israel published intelligence documents long concealed by Iran, conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons."
Not only does the deal fail to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, "it also fails to address the regime's development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads."
The deal "does nothing to constrain Iran's destabilizing activities, including its support for terrorism," he said.
"The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. In just a short period of time, the world's leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world's most dangerous weapons. Therefore, I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal."
Trump continued that "America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail. We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. And we will not allow a regime that chants 'Death to America' to gain access to the most deadly weapons on Earth.
"Today's action sends a critical message: The United States no longer makes empty threats."
'The future of Iran belongs to its people'
Trump left the door open to future negotiations with Iran, although the Islamic republic has already said that is out of the question.
"As we exit the Iran deal, we will be working with our allies to find a real, comprehensive, and lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear threat. This will include efforts to eliminate the threat of Iran's ballistic missile program;,to stop its terrorist activities worldwide, and to block its menacing activity across the Middle East," he said.
"In the meantime, powerful sanctions will go into full effect. If the regime continues its nuclear aspirations, it will have bigger problems than it has ever had before."
Appealing to the Iranian people, Trump said, "The people of America stand with you. It has now been almost 40 years since this dictatorship seized power and took a proud nation hostage. Most of Iran's 80 million citizens have sadly never known an Iran that prospered in peace with its neighbors and commanded the admiration of the world.
"But the future of Iran belongs to its people. They are the rightful heirs to a rich culture and an ancient land. And they deserve a nation that does justice to their dreams, honor to their history, and glory to God."
'Historic move'
On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Trump's decision, saying the deal had been a "recipe for disaster."
"Israel fully supports President Trump's bold decision today to reject the disastrous nuclear deal with the terrorist regime in Tehran," Netanyahu said in a televised speech.
"Israel has opposed the nuclear deal from the start because we said that rather than blocking Iran's path to a bomb, the deal actually paved Iran's path to an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs within a few years' time.
"The removal of sanctions under the deal has already produced disastrous results. The deal did not push war further away – it actually brought it closer. The deal did not reduce Iran's aggression – it dramatically increased it, and we see this across the entire Middle East.
"Since the deal, we have seen Iran's aggression grow every day – in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Gaza, and most of all in Syria, where Iran is trying to establish military bases from which to attack Israel.
"Despite the deal, the terrorist regime in Tehran is developing a ballistic missiles capability, ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads far and wide, to many parts of the world, and as we exposed last week, since the deal, Iran intensified its efforts to hide its secret nuclear weapons program.
"All this combined is a recipe for disaster, a disaster for our region, a disaster for the peace of the world. This is why Israel thinks that President Trump made a historic move and this is why Israel thanks President Trump for his courageous leadership, his commitment to confronting the terrorist regime in Tehran and his commitment to ensuring that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, not today, not in a decade, not ever."
President Reuven Rivlin also lauded Trump's decision, saying it is "an important and significant step toward assuring Israel's security."
