Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's revelation to the world that Iran is cheating on the 2015 nuclear deal makes the upcoming decision by U.S. President Donald Trump about whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran more crucial than ever.
Netanyahu managed to position not only Washington, but all of Europe, on the cusp of a fateful decision. Renewed sanctions against Iran means effectively canceling the main understanding on which the nuclear deal rests: wide-ranging economic benefits for Iran in exchange for lukewarm commitments from Iran about its nuclear program.
As far as international law is concerned, since the agreement is political in nature, a unilateral withdrawal would not necessarily cancel it entirely. But in practice, Washington's near-total control of international financial systems, including those linked to Iran's national bank, leaves many of the economic benefits Iran wanted to gain from the deal empty, particularly when it comes to oil exports. There are many reasons for the current serious economic crisis in Iran, but there is no doubt that Iranian citizens' fears of what may happen as a result of possible American moves is one of the main ones, as is the growing amount of money being smuggled out of the country.
The upcoming date of the decision, May 12, is not the last stop. That will come in mid-July, when Trump is supposed to announce whether the U.S. will apply for additional, more severe, unilateral sanctions against Iran. His May decision will signal what he intends to do later. There is no doubt that the ayatollahs are aware of the ramifications if Trump follows through on his warnings. Based on what he said after Netanyahu's press conference, there is now more chance of that happening, especially if the Europeans, despite their declarations that they intend to stick to the nuclear deal, respond even partly to the positions of the U.S. In the meantime, Iranian leaders are announced that if any changes are made to the deal, they will drop it completely. We can assume they know that such a situation would put the option of military action against them back on the table.
French President Emmanuel Macron's speech to Congress, which analysts said was intended to convince the U.S. to uphold the Iran deal, and other hints surrounding his meetings with Trump, indicate that Macron is not one of the more enthusiastic supporters of the deal. He may not want to cancel it, but he wants to add points on which Europe will insist if the U.S. withdraws. The new deal he is proposing has four underlying principles: a total, permanent ban on nuclear weapons for Iran; a total ban on Iranian military aggression in the Middle East; an end to Iran's long-range missile development program; and improvements to the faulty system of oversight that allows Iran to continue (as Netanyahu unequivocally demonstrated) their secret work on nuclear weapons.
But there is a flaw in this plan: What will make Iran comply with the demands without threatening to cancel the deal entirely? Macron had no answer for that. Therefore, his role will be to convince his European partners to cooperate with the Trump administration rather than getting bogged down in opposition that serves the Iranians and, to no lesser degree, the Russians in their face-off with the West.
There is no chance of swaying Russia and China from their support of the nuclear deal, not because they are partners in Iran's ambitions for hegemony, but because the deal is a tool for them to wield in their struggle against the U.S. in Ukraine, Syria, and the rest of the Middle East. Time will tell.
