5/8/2018

IRAN/ISRAEL/NUCLEAR/SANCTIONS/SAUDI ARABIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “For President Trump and two of the allies he values most — Israel and Saudi Arabia — the problem of the Iranian nuclear accord was not, primarily, about nuclear weapons. It was that the deal legitimized and normalized the clerical Iranian government, reopening it to the world economy with oil revenue that financed its adventures in Syria and Iraq, and support of terror groups. Now, with his pending announcement this afternoon that he will reimpose economic sanctions on Iran and terminate America’s commitment to the Obama-era deal, Mr. Trump is engaged in a grand, highly risky experiment. As one senior European official said, Mr. Trump and his Middle East allies are betting they can cut Iran’s economic lifeline and thus ‘break the regime’ by dismantling the deal. In theory, that could free Iran to produce as much nuclear material as it wants — what it was doing five years ago, when the world feared it was headed toward a bomb. But Mr. Trump’s team dismisses that risk: Tehran doesn’t have the economic strength to confront the United States, Israel and the Saudis. And Iran knows that any move toward ‘breakout’ to produce a weapon would only provide Israel and the United States with a rationale for taking military action.”

-David E. Sanger, “Behind Trump’s Termination of Iran Deal is Risky Bet that U.S. Can ‘Break the Regime’,” The New York Times online, May 8, 2018