Replies

WW Cabal wants to save Iran deal. Sorry, Q says “Iran Next”

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-trump-macron-merkel-20180422-story.html

French, German leaders will bring Trump the same message: Save the Iran nuclear deal

President Trump faces a European double bill this week as a crucial deadline looms for a decision on whether to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, arriving back to back, will bring a unified message: Save the deal.

“I don’t have any Plan B for nuclear [protections] against Iran,” Macron said Sunday on Fox News. “Let’s preserve the framework because it is better than a sort of North Korea-type situation.”

Iran’s foreign minister made the point more dramatically, warning that if Trump quits the 2015 accord, Tehran may respond by relaunching and intensifying its now-blocked nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who helped negotiate the nuclear deal, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Iran might consider “resuming at a much greater speed” its nuclear activities.

“Obviously the rest of the world cannot ask us to unilaterally and one-sidedly implement a deal that has already been broken,” Zarif said.

“I think the international community has seen that … the United States under this administration has not been in a mood to fulfill its obligations,” he said. “So that makes the United States not very trustworthy.”

The dual nuclear dilemmas — Iran and North Korea — are coming to a head in a dramatically short span of time.

Trump has vowed to scrap the 2015 Iran accord unless co-signatories France, Germany and Britain can “fix” it. Unless revisions are made, he has vowed not to sign another waiver of U.S. sanctions on May 12, the next deadline, potentially wrecking the deal.

Trump also is hoping to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by mid-June in a push to roll back the country’s growing nuclear arsenal. On Sunday, Trump uncharacteristically sought to downplay expectations of the proposed summit. “Only time will tell,” he tweeted.

U.S. and European diplomats have been brainstorming ways to address some of Trump’s concerns, including Iran’s production of ballistic missiles and its support for militant groups elsewhere in the Middle East — issues that were never tied to the nuclear deal.

But the diplomats still are not “across the finish line,” a senior administration official told reporters Friday.

Both Macron and Merkel will try to persuade Trump not to renege on the deal.

Macron, who arrives Monday for a three-day official state visit, and Merkel, who comes Friday for a 24-hour working visit, have other concerns, including the tariffs that Trump has imposed on steel and aluminum.

Macron has the best chance of getting through to Trump. The U.S. president seemed enamored of the brash, self-confident French leader, admiring his Bastille Day military parade last summer and dinner under the stars at the Eiffel Tower.