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Why we need to keep the Iran nuclear deal
Friday 4th May 2018 | Jake
Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of the Iran nuclear deal since its inception, as have many of his fellow Republicans. He has repeatedly claimed the deal would see millions of American dollars go to Iran, which has been repeatedly debunked as false. The millions of dollars are Iranian assets previously frozen by sanctions.
But truth has never been a formidable opponent in the face of Trump’s rhetoric. Trump has labelled the deal “incompetently drawn up” and is willing to scrap the deal altogether should any renegotiation not to his liking, despite having no support for such a stance from all other parties involved in the deal.
In 2015 Iran struck a deal with six of the most powerful countries in the world, it was one of Barack Obama’s most ambitious foreign policy projects in his eight-year presidency and was agreed between the US, Iran, the UK, Russia, China, France and Germany. The countries agreed to ease the economic sanctions placed on Iran if they agreed to limit their nuclear programme.
Iran had secretly worked on building nuclear facilities and there were fears these facilities would be used to build weapons. However the nuclear deal of 2015 would see Iran have to comply with strict regulation, including – and in no way limited to – the reduction of its enriched uranium stockpile by 98%, and repeated inspection of all facilities from an independent body, the International Atomic Energy Agency, who say Iran have complied with the demands of the deal.
The Iran deal offered hope that an influential nation, with a keenly felt presence across the Middle East, would not resort to nuclear weaponry and a new age of diplomacy between Iran and the West could begin following years of enmity. Sadly, Trump appears determined to go nuclear on the deal.
