Enforce the Iran deal. Violate the Iran deal. Leave it to Congress. Do nothing.
Donald Trump has an array of options before him when he assumes the presidency on Jan. 20. Reached last year between Iran and six major powers led by the United States, the agreement rolled back Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The open question is, what does the next leader of the free world want to do
His peregrinations were evident when Trump spoke in March to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference and claimed — minutes apart — that he both planned to enforce the deal and to scrap it.
“My No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran,” Trump said. Then a few moments later: “We will enforce it like you’ve never seen a contract enforced before, folks, believe me.”
More recently, Trump appears to be leaning more in the direction of enforcement than of scrapping, and an Israel position paper released in the last days of the campaign did not confront Iran agressively.
Here are some of Trump’s options on Iran:
Silence: If Trump doesn’t want a headache, this would be the way to go.
However, some of his formal rivals for the Republican presidential nomination (such as Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida) are back in their Senate seats, and they hate the deal. Still with presidential aspirations, they’re itching to distinguish themselves from Trump. His silence on Iran would hand them a huge opening.
Declare it dead, move on: To shut up Rubio and Cruz, Trump can declare the deal dead and do nothing. Then again, if he goes that route, the Iranians can point to a declaration of intent to withdraw in order to drop out of the program themselves and then start enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.
Scrap the deal: Trump has a number of mechanisms at his disposal that would immediately pull the United States out of the deal. All of them involve restoring an array of sanctions that targeted third parties that deal with Iran. (Direct dealings with Iran, with several exceptions, are still banned for U.S. entities.)
As President Bill Clinton did in 1995, Trump could issue an executive order advancing new sanctions. Or he could invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which gives the president broad sanctioning power.
However, any pullback from the Iran deal will raise the question of who is at fault for its collapse. The more proactive the United States is in killing the deal, the likelier that the international partners will blame the U.S. and continue trading with Iran, threats be damned.
Moreover, Trump may not have the ability to waive existing sanctions due to the Iran Sanctions Act, which lapses Dec. 31 but is expected to be re-authorized by Congress.
Enforcement: Conservatives who oppose the deal want Trump to actively enforce the deal and ensure that the Iranians aren’t violating it. Trump needs to start “doing a bunch of stuff that’s allowed that the [Obama administration] hasn’t been doing,” said Omri Ceren of the Israel Project. “In other words, taking the deal seriously.”
“All that needs to happen for the deal to fall apart is for the Trump White House to do what the Obama administration has refused to do — enforce its provisions,” wrote Lee Smith in the Weekly Standard.
However, selling the notion to U.S. partners that Iran is in violation might be difficult.
Let Congress do it: If Congress fails to reauthorize Iran sanctions before it concludes its business, there are any number of Republican senators ready to write new ones. That way, Trump doesn’t get blamed for walking away from the deal. But Democrats will likely filibuster any new legislation. An array of groups that backed the deal, including J Street, the liberal Middle East policy group, has pledged to hold the party’s feet to the fire.
Trump could also satisfy hard-liners by encouraging them to come up with the toughest anti-deal legislation possible — and then watch it wither on the vine.