Since the election campaign of Donald Trump, the Iran Nuclear Deal has been front-page news around the world. Now President of the United States, Donald Trump is setting sights on tearing up the Iran Nuclear Deal for a number of different reasons. The Iran Nuclear Deal has held itself paramount over new cycles for years, though precious few individuals have taken the time to explore and understand the complexities of the agreement. Today, we will seek to lift the veil on the Nuclear Deal while discussing some of the tertiary fallout of the deal’s dismissal.
Beginning in May of 2018, President Trump set his sights on officially withdrawing the United States government from the Iran Nuclear Deal. President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the agreement may garner the most headlines, but the fact that this deal has been in the works for almost 25 years should surprise people. The Nuclear Agreement with Iran is actually a deal supervised by a committee of eight countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China, and the EU. The goal of the agreement was to limit Iran’s capability of producing a real nuclear weapon. In exchange for reducing its nuclear capabilities, Iran would receive the benefit of reduced or outright removed sanctions from the international community. Writers like Amir Handjani have gone deeper into the subject for interested parties who want a more nuanced understanding of the agreement.
Deciding to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal was a decision that President Trump coalesced his political campaign around. The President of the United States has typically described the deal as ‘terrible’, claiming that the deal gave too much away for what the United States was receiving. While President Trump was the loudest voice crying against the Iran agreement, he was far from the only world leader with the opinion. With that being said, President Trump’s outcry came directly at odds with three of America’s closest allies: France, the UK, and Germany.
Since making the decision to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Agreement, there has been a seemingly unending chain of consequences. Starting in the Gulf of Oman, a pair of oil facilities owned by Saudi Arabia were attacked. Escalations continued to rise in 2020 when the United States killed General Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran predictably responded by claiming that the United States had committed an act of international terrorism. In the wake of Soleimani’s death, President Trump has employed other members of the committee to step away from the agreement. Despite the chaos surrounding the deal and its corresponding parties, the rest of the committee is moving forward with the deal.
As the international community continues to watch Iran with interest, the other members of the Iran Nuclear Deal are going to be put under even more pressure. With the 2020 Presidential Election looming in the United States, the Iran Nuclear Deal could look very different within just a year’s time. For now, the rest of the world waits.