A Nobel for Trump/جائزة نوبل لترمب/Trump Has All but Decided to Withdraw From Iran Nuclear Deal, Sources Tell/لم يعد على ترمب سوى أن ينسحب من الإتفاق النووي الإيراني

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Trump Has All but Decided to Withdraw From Iran Nuclear Deal, Sources Tell Reuters
لم يعد على ترمب سوى أن ينسحب من الإتفاق النووي الإيراني
Haaretz and Reuters/ May 03, 2018

Europeans losing hope for a compromise to keep the deal
Days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a presentation arguing for the end of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, U.S. President Donald Trump has all but decided to withdraw on May 12, two White House officials and a source familiar with the administration’s internal debate told Reuters on Wednesday. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how exactly Trump will do so
There is a chance Trump might choose to keep the United States in the international pact under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, in part because of “alliance maintenance” with France and to save face for French President Emmanuel Macron, who met Trump last week and urged him to stay in, the source said.
A decision by Trump to end U.S. sanctions relief would all but sink the agreement and could trigger a backlash by Iran, which could resume its nuclear arms program or “punish” U.S. allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, diplomats said.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday against scrapping an international deal onIran’s nuclear program unless there was a good alternative in place
Technically, Trump must decide by May 12 whether to renew “waivers” suspending some of the U.S. sanctions on Iran. One of the White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was possible Trump will end up with a decision that “is not a full pullout” but was unable to describe what that might look like.
A presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday about what he said was documentary evidence of Tehran’s past nuclear arms program could give Trump a fresh argument to withdraw, even though UN inspectors say Iran has complied with the terms of the deal
Iran has denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and accuses its arch-foe Israel of stirring up world suspicions against it.
The pact between Iran and six major powers – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States – was among former U.S. President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policies but has been described by Trump as “one of the worst deals I have ever witnessed.”
The White House official said Trump was “most of the way there toward pulling out of the deal but he hasn’t made the decision” and that he “seems poised to do it but until a decision is made by this president it is not final.”
Top aides are not seeking aggressively to talk Trump out of withdrawal because he seems intent on it, a second White House official said.
Europeans losing hope
Trump gave Britain, France and Germany a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as the deal’s flaws – its failure to address Iran’s ballistic missile program, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and “sunset” clauses under which some of its terms expire – or he will reimpose U.S. sanctions.
While European officials continue to work toward such a “fix,” they believe the odds are against reaching one.
One of the main sticking points has to do with the “sunsets,” where the United States in effect wishes to find a way to extend some of the limits onIran’s nuclear program beyond their expiration dates under the agreement.
The source familiar with the debate said U.S. negotiators are hamstrung by the fact that they do not really know where Trump’s “red line” is and so they cannot tell the Europeans what would secure Trump’s blessing.
Trump could refuse to renew the waivers but give new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo time to negotiate more with the Europeans, exploiting the deal’s dispute resolution mechanism or the time before the most draconian sanctions take effect.
Several sources familiar with the negotiations said that if Trump pulls out, a question for the Europeans will be whether this would be the start of a much harder U.S. line toward Iran, including military confrontation.
“The Europeans are not keen to be dragged into a regional conflict by the U.S.,” said one source familiar with the talks.
Two U.S. intelligence officials said they were particularly concerned about Iranian retaliation in harder-to-trace actions such as cyber attacks on the United States or its allies and attacks on soft targets by people without obvious ties to Tehran.
Such attacks are considered more likely than actions that might trigger a U.S. military response against Iranian nuclear and military targets.

 

A Nobel for Trump!جائزة نوبل لترمب
Ruthie Blum//Gatestone Institute/May 03/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12245/trump-nobel
“President Trump’s peace through strength policies are working and bringing peace to the Korean peninsula. We can think of no one more deserving of the Committee’s recognition in 2019 than President Trump for his tireless work to bring peace to our world.” — 18 Members of the US Congress to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, May 2, 2018.
US President Donald Trump was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by a group of 18 members of Congress. In a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, dated May 2, Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.) and 17 other House lawmakers — including Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Diane Black (R-Tenn.) and Steve King (R-Iowa) — wrote that Trump has worked “tirelessly to apply maximum pressure to North Korea to end its illicit weapons programs and bring peace to the region.”
The letter further stated that the Trump administration
“successfully united the international community, including China, to impose
one of the most successful international sanctions regimes in history. The sanctions have decimated the North Korean economy and have been largely credited for bringing North Korea to the negotiating table. Although North Korea has evaded demands from the international community to cease its aggression for decades, President Trump’s peace through strength policies are working and bringing peace to the Korean peninsula. We can think of no one more deserving of the Committee’s recognition in 2019 than President Trump for his tireless work to bring peace to our world.”
Although the letter constituted a formal nomination, it was not the first suggestion that Trump might, or should, win a Nobel Peace Prize. On May 1 — mere days after an historic summit between Moon and North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un, during which the two leaders vowed to work toward “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula — Moon was quoted by a Blue House official as saying, “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. What we need is only peace.”
As she walked the red carpet of the White House Correspondents’ dinner on April 30, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was asked by a Pajamas Media reporter whether Trump would be eligible for a Nobel Peace Prize in the event that North Korea actually agrees to denuclearize, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) replied:
“We’re a long way from that, but let’s see. There’s always an opportunity for a president of the United States to qualify. Let’s see how it goes.”
Pelosi and other Trump detractors are in an uncomfortable position where the Nobel Peace Prize is concerned. Former US President Barack Obama was awarded the prize in 2009, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”
In 2015, however, the non-voting Director of the Nobel Institute until 2014, Geir Lundestad, published a memoir — “Fredens sekretær. 25 år med Nobelprisen” (“Secretary of Peace: 25 years with the Nobel Prize”) — in which he expressed regret about the decision to give the prize to Obama, “as it did not achieve what the committee had hoped for.”
However the upcoming discussions between the US and North Korea turn out, regardless of whether one is Republican, Democrat or independent, the US president’s historic initiative to denuclearize the Korean peninsula deserves this recognition.
*Ruthie Blum is the author of To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.'”
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