Trump Tries a ‘Waive-and-Slap’ Approach to Tehran
Mark Dubowitz
17th May 2017 - The Wall Street Journal
Co-written by David Albright
The Trump administration had no sooner renewed a waiver on U.S.
sanctions against Iran’s crude-oil exports Wednesday than it introduced a raft
of new sanctions against the regime. Call it the waive-and-slap approach.
The oil-exports sanctions waiver, which will continue to temporarily
allow Iran to sell its crude oil to international customers despite the
statutory sanctions, had come due as part of the Iran nuclear deal. But their
renewal is no sign that President Trump is flip-flopping on his campaign
promise to “tear up” the deal. The Trump administration is currently conducting
an Iran-policy review. The last thing Mr. Trump should do before this policy is
finalized is to make drastic and premature decisions that could incite a
diplomatic backlash.
Mr. Trump needs to take his time developing a comprehensive strategy
to roll back and subvert Iranian aggression. Only once U.S. leverage is
restored can he address the deal’s fatal flaws. These include sunset provisions
that give Tehran patient pathways to nuclear weapons and the missiles to
deliver them; inadequate access for inspectors to Iranian military sites;
unworkable controls on Iran’s overseas procurement for its nuclear and missile
programs; poor assurance that Iran isn’t cooperating with North Korea on
nuclear-capable missiles and sensitive nuclear activities; and front-loaded
sanctions relief.
Until such a strategy is in place, the administration appears to have
found an elegant way to maintain pressure on Iran. While waiving oil sanctions
for a further 120 days, on Wednesday the U.S. Treasury Department
applied sanctions to a further four entities and three individuals from Iran
and China for activities relating to the regime’s ballistic-missile program.
It’s a clear message to foreign banks and companies looking to do business with
Iran: You will be taking significant risks if you deal with a country still
covered by a web of expanding nonnuclear sanctions.
This comes on top of Treasury’s announcement Tuesday of new sanctions
against Syria, Iran’s closest Arab ally in the Middle East. Those sanctions
targeted the family members, companies and a charity connected to Bashar
Assad’s regime bagman, Rami Makhluf.
In only four months, the Trump administration has applied sanctions to
281 individuals and entities associated with the
Syrian regime and its henchmen, compared to a combined total of 317 from
the Obama and George W. Bush administrations. There also have been more than 40 new
sanctions connected to Iranian missile and terrorism activities and the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corp’s Quds Force.
The U.S. State Department also released on Wednesday a report
detailing Iran’s human-rights abuses, including its detention of U.S. citizens
and other foreign nationals on false charges. This follows Monday’s release by
State of a report detailing Mr. Assad’s industrial crematoriums in a prison
complex where thousands of prisoners were summarily executed.
Last month, the Trump administration imposed two Iran-related human-rights
sanctions, including one on Sohrab Soleimani —the brother of Qassem Soleimani,
the head of the notorious Quds Force—for overseeing Iran’s infamous Evin
Prison. That’s another stark warning to foreign companies: The Iranian regime
is abetting the slaughter in Syria while your own employees could end up as
hostages in Evin Prison.
The letter to Congress accompanying Wednesday’s waiver decision also
goes into detail about Iran’s continued malign activities and the
administration’s commitment “not to be deterred in confronting the Iranian
regime.”
In other words, more may be to come. The next round of waiver
decisions related to the Iran nuclear deal arrives in July and have to do with
sanctions on energy, banking, shipping, shipbuilding and precious metals. That
will be closely followed by a requirement for the administration to again
certify that Iran is fully implementing the deal and hasn’t committed any
material breach.
It will also release a six-month report on Iran’s compliance with the
nuclear deal, including reporting on any noncompliance with the provisions of
the deal, as well as Iranian missile, illicit financing and terrorist
activities. At that time, the Trump administration should once again combine a
temporary sanctions waiver with more nonnuclear sanctions measures and
mechanisms to expose the Islamic Republic’s dangerous conduct.
Proponents of the nuclear deal will point to the Trump waiver as an
indication that the deal is working. It’s not. Iran has committed numerous
violations of its commitments under the nuclear deal relating to advanced
centrifuge R&D, heavy-water caps and the denial of IAEA access to Iranian
sites such as Sharif University, which is connected to previous undeclared
nuclear activities.
Moreover, Iran has been exploiting many loopholes in the deal that
border on violations or otherwise have a negative impact on U.S. national
security. Even if these aren’t yet a material breach, it’s important to
remember that the Iranian regime cheats incrementally, not egregiously, but that
the sum total of that incremental cheating is eventually egregious.
The Iran nuclear deal is a deeply flawed agreement. But it is the
nature and behavior of the regime that is the overarching danger to the
security of the U.S. and its allies. The Trump administration is wise to hold
off on making big moves until it has devised a full strategy to confront this
broader threat. Until then, waive and slap should become the norm for the
foreseeable future.
Mr. Dubowitz is the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies. Mr. Albright is the president of the Institute for Science and
International Security. Follow Mark on Twitter @mdubowitz.
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