Trump’s return to the nuclear agreement

Written by Nasser Kandil,

After his electoral campaign and his assuming power the US President Donald Trump returns to recognize the nuclear agreement with Iran after he set with the French President Emnanuel Macron a ceiling for it to prevent the breaking of the European-American unity. The European position sticks to the agreement in a way that became closer to be a response to the American demand to justify the returning to it. During a year of attempts Washington could not change the international and regional balances of powers. It knows that without it, it is impossible to abolish the agreement without alternatives, as it knows that the inability which was obliged the former US President Barack Obama to accept the agreement is the same inability which Trump denied and insisted on testing the opportunities of changing it.

Certainly, there is no American -European dispute that led Europe to rebel against the American decision, as there is not any challenge to America in Europe’s sticking to the nuclear agreement, because everything shows that Europe is saying what America demands in order to reduce the escalation under the slogan of the unity of the West’s position and granting more opportunities to improve the conditions of the agreement. It became clear that the first step has been expressed by Macron and became the new positioning plan for Trump. Its content is to separate between continuing the agreement in its current form and prevent its exposing to threat on one hand, and the endeavor to embrace the issues which are not included in the agreement after having a consensual negotiation with Iran preceded with Russia and China on the other hand.

Trump knows that the escalation with Iran is inappropriate now, since the criterion of the credibility of the commitment to agreements and treaties which will be on the negotiating table with Korea is shown in the Iranian experience, as he knows that his campaign to blow up the agreement was a negotiating attempt to change the balances of forces which will reflect into modifications that Trump wants in the agreement in case there was a negotiation, however the failure in changing brought him back to search for a moral exit that justifies the return to the agreement, so this must be offered by the European friend as an achievement in the European policy.

Until the date of deciding the fate of the agreement on the twelfth of next May, the American words will remain about the protest against the Iranian influence and the Iranian missile program, and the need for understandings that embrace them, while the Iranian words will remain foreshadowing of what is not expected through any attempt to tamper with the signed agreement and refusing any negotiation on it. The Europeans will emerge talking about their sticking to the agreement as it is without any modification and about the need to revive the formula of five plus one, which may become five plus two by adding Saudi Arabia under the slogan of searching in the regional files. The Americans and the Europeans will move toward Russia and China asking for help. Then Trump will emerge on time announcing his commitment to the agreement and the acceptance of the European exit by searching for a complementary agreement to the main agreement. It is certain that Iran which refuses that renegotiation on its nuclear program will refuse the negotiation on its missile program; therefore the available negotiation will be on the regional problems as an international framework that sponsors a Saudi- Iranian negotiation.

In Obama’s era the equation was: there is no alternative to the agreement but the agreement. Today the same equation is applied.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,