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Trump Stops Short of Reimposing Iran Sanctions but Sets Deadline to Overhaul Deal Trump’s Demand to Rewrite Iran Deal Tests a Weakened Diplomatic Corps
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump again stopped short of reimposing punitive sanctions on Iran that could break up its nuclear deal with world powers, the White House said on Friday. But Mr. Trump gave European allies only 120 days to agree to an overhaul of the deal or administration officials said he would pull the United States out of it. WASHINGTON — President Trump, by demanding on Friday that European allies agree to rewrite the Iran nuclear deal within 120 days or he will kill it, set himself a diplomatic challenge that would be formidable even for an administration with a deep bench of experienced negotiators.
He also approved sanctions against the head of Iran’s judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, a powerful figure whom the administration holds culpable for the violent crackdown on recent antigovernment protests. For Mr. Trump, who has filled his national security ranks with retired military officers and allowed his State Department to languish, the challenge is even more profound. And it is not limited to Iran: The North Korea crisis has taken a sudden turn toward diplomacy, with the unexpected opening of talks between the North and the South.
Mr. Larijani is the most prominent of several Iranian officials and entities blacklisted, a roster of 14 individuals and entities that also includes the cyber unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the United States said has repressed social media networks that protesters can use to share information. On both fronts, current and former officials say, the Trump administration is being forced to rethink strategies that had been driven largely by military considerations. Many say the White House is ill equipped to deal with the prospect of a South Korean détente with the North’s Kim Jong-un or the recent eruption of political unrest in Iran.
Mr. Trump’s action, which was widely expected, is the third time he has given a reprieve to the agreement brokered by President Barack Obama, despite having labeled it “the worst deal ever” and threatening repeatedly to rip it up. The antigovernment protests in Iran have complicated Mr. Trump’s calculations about whether to rip up the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, several officials said. While the unrest has made the president even more determined to punish the Iranian leadership, it has also reinforced the conviction of European leaders that the deal should be preserved.
His reluctance to preserve the agreement deepened in recent weeks after the protests, in which at least 21 people died and thousands were jailed. But the president’s senior aides again persuaded him not to dissolve it, while European leaders have said Iran was still abiding by its terms — and that breaching it would play into the hands of hard-liners in the country. On Friday, Mr. Trump grudgingly agreed not to reimpose comprehensive sanctions that would have broken apart the deal. But he gave European allies only four months to agree to a stricter “follow on” agreement, warning that he would pull the United States out of it without one.
Mr. Trump, officials said, would not waive the sanctions again in May unless the Europeans agreed to a “follow-on” deal that eliminates the “sunset clauses” in the current agreement, under which Iran is allowed to resume activities like enriching uranium. It would also have to contain “triggers,” including inspections of Iranian facilities, which would lead to a reimposition of sanctions if Iran failed to comply. He also ordered targeted sanctions against the head of Iran’s judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, a powerful figure whom the administration holds culpable for the violent crackdown on the protests, as well as against an Iranian cyberwarfare unit that it accuses of internet censorship.
Iran did not immediately react to the announcement, though officials said they were prepared if Mr. Trump had decided to act. Iran’s first vice president, Eshagh Jahangiri, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency, “If the Americans withdraw from the nuclear deal, we will not hold a mourning service; we are fully prepared for any likely event.” The nuclear deal, Mr. Trump said, drove Iranians into the streets because the government misused the proceeds from the lifting of sanctions. “It has served as a slush fund for weapons, terror and oppression, and to further line the pockets of corrupt regime leaders,” he said in a statement.
White House officials played up the sanctions against Mr. Larijani as a symbol of Mr. Trump’s displeasure with the Islamic Republic’s government — and solidarity with those who are rallying against it. They predicted that the move would reverberate politically inside Iran, since Mr. Larijani’s brother, Ali Larijani, is the head of Iran’s parliament. But that is precisely why European leaders argue that keeping the deal in place makes even more sense now: because it keeps a harsh spotlight on Iran’s leaders, and their malfeasance, rather than allowing the Iranians to paint the United States and its allies as the villains.
Mr. Trump’s decision came after a Thursday meeting with his national security team on a turbulent day, during which he made a vulgar reference to immigrants in a meeting with senators and told The Wall Street Journal, “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un,” referring to the North Korean leader. Diplomats from several European countries said that renegotiating the deal was a nonstarter. The best Mr. Trump could hope for, one official said, would be a commitment from Europe to begin work on a new and separate agreement. Such a step, they said, would require the participation of China and Russia, which are also signatories to the deal, as well as Iran itself — something the White House ruled out.
Starting on Friday, Mr. Trump faces a series of deadlines related to the Iran nuclear deal and sanctions that were waived as a result of it. The first of those deadlines — for extending or terminating the waiver for the central bank and oil sanctions — is by far the most significant. “If we want seriously to be able to raise the price to the Iranians of what they are doing internally and externally, we need the Europeans,” said Dennis B. Ross, a former adviser to President Barack Obama who helped devise his Iran policy. “But if they think that we are only interested in walking away from the nuclear deal, they won’t join us.”
In October, Mr. Trump refused to certify the agreement — a decision he is expected to reaffirm next week. At the time, the president warned that he would take further action to nullify the deal if Congress and the allies did not act. The administration, other experts said, is locked into a policy that has two major pillars: dismantling Mr. Obama’s nuclear deal and confronting Iran on its aggression in the region, through its support of militant groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and other proxies in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
“In the event we are not able to reach a solution working with Congress and our allies,” he said, “then the agreement will be terminated.” That is not surprising, given that the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, are former commanders who served in Iraq and blame Iran for the death of American soldiers there.
Republicans in the Senate have drafted legislation that would amend the deal by eliminating its “sunset provisions.” But they have so far been unable to bridge gaps with the Democratic caucus. Even below that level, the administration’s Iran policy is heavily influenced by the military. Joel Rayburn, the top Iran policymaker at the National Security Council, is a former military intelligence officer, as is Andrew L. Peek, a senior Iran policymaker at the State Department. Several of the department’s nonmilitary Iran experts have been pushed out in recent months.
There is also no evidence that the Europeans have the appetite to reopen the deal. Now, the administration is suddenly grappling with an Iranian government that is weakened and divided by the protests — a political development that the Americans did not anticipate.
On Thursday, hours before Mr. Trump made his decision, European foreign ministers met in Brussels with Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, ostensibly to press Tehran about its destabilizing activities in the region, which are putting the nuclear deal at risk. “When you’re dealing with Iran’s regional affairs, you’re dealing with how it supplies proxies and militias,” said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who worked in the Obama administration. “If you’re thinking about Iran’s internal problems, that is a more difficult problem. You’re thinking about fissures, and how to exploit them.”
But to some in Washington, the meeting amounted to a show of unity between Europe and Iran — and of defiance toward the United States. There were images of a smiling Mr. Zarif, seated among smiling European officials, followed by a parade of statements in favor of the deal. Mr. Takeyh said Mr. Obama was similarly caught off guard in 2009 by the protests that became known as the Green Movement. At the time, he was trying to entice Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, into talks. That is one reason he reacted so little to those protests — a reaction that Mr. Trump criticized in his statement on Friday.
“I don’t think anybody has so far produced a better alternative,” said the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. “The Iran nuclear deal makes the world safer. European partners were unanimous today in our determination to preserve the deal and tackle Iran’s disruptive behavior.” Ideally, Mr. Ross said, policy toward Iran would be a mix of coercive measures and diplomatic inducements. “With Obama, one could argue that the coercive part of the equation was not believable,” he said. “With Trump, the diplomatic side of the equation may prove not to be believable.”
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, said, “The deal is working — it is delivering on its main goal, which means keeping the Iranian nuclear program in check and under close surveillance.” The White House appears to recognize the weakness in its diplomatic ranks. It is considering the appointment of a special envoy for Iran, who could negotiate with the Europeans on the nuclear deal, as well as marshal a stronger response to Iran’s behavior in the region.
In a phone call, President Emmanuel Macron of France also urged Mr. Trump not to scrap the deal. Mr. Macron “reaffirmed France’s determination to see the agreement strictly enforced and the importance for all of its signatories to abide by it,” his office said in a statement. Any envoy would face a tough task: Administration officials said Mr. Trump was demanding an agreement that would eliminate all “sunset clauses,” under which Iran can resume activities like enriching uranium, and would explicitly link its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Iran fought against both of these demands in the negotiations that led to the 2015 deal.
Privately, some White House officials complained about the phone call with Mr. Macron, which they said could have provoked Mr. Trump. Others said the diplomatic meeting in Brussels was similarly ill-conceived, and they expressed frustration that the legislative efforts in Congress were not progressing quickly enough. With North Korea, the administration’s policy has been more balanced between diplomacy and military planning. But the talks between the Koreas have undermined Mr. Trump’s strategy, which is to impose maximum pressure on Pyongyang — including the threat of a military strike — to pressure Mr. Kim into giving up his nuclear arsenal.
The White House has sent General McMaster and the N.S.C.’s top Asia policymaker, Matthew Pottinger, to San Francisco, where they will meet with their counterparts from South Korea and Japan to discuss the implications of the North-South dialogue.
General McMaster has spoken publicly about the need to prepare for a “preventive war” against North Korea. Mr. Pottinger, a retired Marine, also has a background in military intelligence, though at other times, he worked as a journalist and for a hedge fund.
White House officials are deeply skeptical of the overture from Mr. Kim to South Korea. They say he is trying to drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States. And they have urged the South Koreans to keep the exchanges limited to narrow issues, like security at the coming Winter Olympics in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang.
Mr. Trump, however, appears caught between continuing to heap ridicule on Mr. Kim and taking credit for the diplomatic opening. At Camp David last weekend, the president said he hoped the talks ranged far beyond the Olympics, and he backed them in a call with South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in.
The trajectory of the talks may be out of Mr. Trump’s control anyway, according to experts on the region. Mr. Moon was elected on a platform of reducing tensions with the North. Young South Koreans, in particular, view Mr. Trump’s threats of war on North Korea with alarm — sometimes even more than the danger posed by Mr. Kim.
“The North Korea issue may be entering a new phase,” said Evan S. Medeiros, the top Asia adviser in Mr. Obama’s N.S.C. “Moon’s agenda and perceptions seem to be evolving, and, as cynical as we all are about North Korea, it is worth asking the question: Is Kim actually looking for a negotiated off-ramp, and what would such behavior look like?”
“Is the Trump administration, which has understandably focused on coercive tools to date, nimble enough to respond to this evolution?” he said.