How leaving the Iran deal makes the world less safe

By exiting the Iranian nuclear deal, President Donald Trump made it harder to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program – while giving Iran reason to contemplate restarting a program it had moth-balled.

It’s a repeat of the years leading up to North Korea successfully building nuclear weapons, though this time for disturbing reasons. President Bill Clinton negotiated a deal with North Korea in the 1990s to try to persuade it to stop enriching material that could lead to the production of nuclear missiles. The deal fell apart during the Bush administration, which had good reason to believe North Korea wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain. George W. Bush tried to pursue a better deal – the way Trump claims he will with Iran – but could only watch as North Korea transformed into the nuclear power we now know it to be.

Trump had the power to take the U.S. out of the Iran deal because it was not ratified by the U.S. Senate, something which has become virtually impossible to secure because of hyper-partisanship in Congress. But there was no good reason for Trump to tear up the deal. By all objective accounts, including from top Trump officials, Iran had been complying with the agreement.

Our allies in France, Germany, Britain and across the European Union had been urging the president to stay true to the deal. They knew Trump had not secured a better deal – because they knew the enormous amount of painstaking work that went into securing the original one. He had not convinced other parties that pulling out would be in the world’s best interests. In fact, he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spent several months trying to undermine the deal publicly and privately, including misrepresenting intelligence and hiring an Israeli firm to dig up dirt on Obama officials who helped put the deal together.

Neither the U.S. nor Israel (nor the world) is safer because of this decision. By going back on our word with Iran, Trump has given North Korea room to say it's keeping its nuclear weapons program because it can’t trust any agreement with the United States.

Trump also has created more uncertainty in a region where things are already too uncertain. The nuclear deal did not stop Iran from doing awful things to its citizens or supporting terrorists. It was never designed to make Iran perfect, even though there was hope the sanctions relief may have eventually convinced the regime to become a more responsible partner to the rest of the world. It was designed only to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons – something most objective experts and analysts say it had been doing effectively.

Instead, the chances of another war in the Middle East just increased. Now it’s up to the Iranians and other countries involved in the deal to help the world stave off that unnerving possibility. The U.S. just gave up its seat at the table.

This story was originally published May 9, 2018 at 2:02 PM with the headline "How leaving the Iran deal makes the world less safe."