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Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the state of Sen. Dan Sullivan. He represents Alaska. This version has been corrected.

President Trump is expected to announce next week that he will decertify the international nuclear deal with Iran, saying it is not in the national interest of the United States and kicking the issue to a reluctant Congress, people briefed on the White House strategy said Thursday.

The move would mark the first step in a process that could eventually result in the resumption of U.S. sanctions against Iran, potentially derailing a deal limiting Irans nuclear activities reached in 2015 with the United States and five other nations.

But Trump would hold off on recommending that Congress reimpose sanctions, which would constitute a clearer break from the pact, according to four people familiar with aspects of the presidents thinking.

The decision would amount to a middle ground of sorts between Trump, who has long wanted to withdraw from the agreement completely, and many congressional leaders and senior diplomatic, military and national security advisers, who say the deal is worth preserving with changes if possible.

This week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed qualified support for the deal during congressional testimony. And Mattis suggested he did not believe taking the step to decertify would scuttle the agreement.

President Trump criticized the Iran nuclear deal and called the Iranian government a corrupt dictatorship while addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 19. (Reuters)

Trump is expected to deliver a speech, tentatively scheduled for Oct.12, laying out a larger strategy for confronting the nation he blames for terrorism and instability throughout the Middle East.

Officials cautioned that plans could still change, and the White House would not confirm plans for a speech or its contents. Trump faces an Oct.15 deadline to report to Congress on whether Iran is complying with the agreement and whether he judges the deal to be in the U.S. national security interest.

The administration looks forward to sharing details of our Iran strategy at the appropriate time, said Michael Anton, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

The fate of the nuclear pact is only one consideration in that larger strategy, U.S. officials said, although given Trumps focus on the deal as an embarrassment, it is the most high-profile element.

The agreement signed under President Barack Obama was intended to close off the potential for Iran to quickly build a nuclear bomb by curbing nuclear activities the United States and other partners considered most troubling. It allowed some uranium enrichment to continue for what Iran claims is peaceful medical research and energy; the country says it has never sought nuclear weapons. In exchange, world powers lifted crippling U.S. and international economic sanctions.

At issue now is the fate of U.S. sanctions lifted by Obama and, by extension, whether the United States will move to break the deal. That could open an international breach with European partners who have warned they will not follow suit.

Outreach for a transatlantic understanding about reopening or supplementing the deal is likely to be part of Trumps announcement, according to one Iran analyst who has discussed the strategy with administration officials. Several other people familiar with a nine-month review of U.S. military, diplomatic, economic and intelligence policy toward Iran spoke on the condition of anonymity because aspects of the policy are not yet set, and Trump has not announced his decision.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif spoke with Charlie Rose about threats to cancel the Iran nuclear deal on Sept. 27 at the Asia Society in New York. (Reuters)

Trump said last month that he had decided what to do on Iran but that he would not divulge the decision at that time.

Welcoming military leaders to a White House dinner Thursday night, Trump said Iran had not lived up to its end of the nuclear bargain.

The Iranian regime supports terrorism and exports violence, bloodshed and chaos across the Middle East, he said. That is why we must put an end to Irans continued aggression and nuclear ambitions. They have not lived up to the spirit of their agreement.

The presidents senior national security advisers agreed within the past several weeks to recommend that Trump decertify the agreement at the Oct.15 deadline, two of those people said.

The administration has begun discussing possible legislation to strengthen the agreement, congressional aides and others said a fix it or nix it approach suggested by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), a leading Republican hawk on Iran.

But the prospects of such an approach are highly uncertain, and many supporters of the deal consider it a dodge.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said last month that he will not reopen the agreement for negotiation. Separately, representatives of Iran, China and Russia told Secretary of State Rex Tillerson the same thing during a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session last month, two senior diplomats familiar with that meeting said.

[U.S., Iran accuse one another of undermining nuclear deal]

Cotton appeared to preview the main elements of the administrations plan this week, although he said he does not know exactly what Trump plans to do. The two met Thursday at the White House.

In a speech Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations, Cotton said Trump should decline to certify the deal and begin the work of strengthening it.

He said decertification should be based on a finding that the deal is not in the U.S. vital national security interest, citing the long catalogue of the regimes crimes and perfidy against the United States, as well as the deals inherent weakness.

But Cotton said he would not push for the immediate reimposition of sanctions, as some conservative lawmakers and outside lobbying groups are doing.

He laid out proposals for Congress to pass new stipulations for U.S. participation in the deal, including elimination of the sunset clauses under which restrictions on some Iranian nuclear activities expire after several years, tougher inspections requirements and new curbs on Irans ballistic and cruise missile programs.

Cotton claimed that a unified statement from Congress would help Trump forge a new agreement among European and other allies and strengthen his hand for renegotiation.

The world needs to know were serious, were willing to walk away, and were willing to reimpose sanctions and a lot more than that, Cotton said. And theyll know that when the president declines to certify the deal, and not before.

In the Senate, plans have been underway for months to respond to a presidential decertification.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been Capitol Hills point person on discussions with the White House. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also have been made aware of plans being discussed with the White House and State Department.

McConnell is not eager to take on the issue at a time when the Senate calendar is full and midterm elections are only a year off, according to congressional aides and a Western diplomat who has met with him.

Hes not excited about getting the Old Maid, said the diplomat, referring to the card game where the player left holding a certain card is the loser.

Still, Republican leaders say they are confident that they can craft a legislative response to the presidents decision that can address deficiencies in the deal and avoid turning the issue into a political litmus test for the GOP.

Some Republicans have also been urging the president to take a critical public stance against the deal without blowing it up.

The president should come out and say, Hey, were going to enforce this, and right now I think these different provisions are being violated, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said last week, adding that Trump should tell Iran it has a limited window to fix problems. If they dont, do what [then-Secretary of State] John Kerry and Barack Obama said they were going to do, which is snap back sanctions.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said a decertification would undermine global confidence in the deal and in U.S. commitments generally.

If the president fails to certify the deal while saying Iran is complying with it, its a destructive political gesture, Schiff said.

[Text of Iran nuclear deal]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that beginning a process that could result in the United States withdrawing from the Iran deal would go against advice from his own national security team and our closest allies.

Unilaterally abandoning this agreement will make the world less safe, she said in a statement.

A half-dozen Democrats who went to the White House on Wednesday evening to meet with national security adviser H.R. McMaster came away with the impression that he agreed with Mattis and Dunford.

The group who visited with McMaster to discuss Iran included Cardin and Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Angus King (I-Maine), according to a person familiar with the meeting.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) called the nuclear deal very, very flawed but not completely ineffective a common view among Republicans and a potential starting point for negotiations with Democrats.

What we have to figure out is how to actually accomplish what we were well on our way to do before Barack Obama gave them a patient pathway to a nuclear bomb, Gardner said, referring to what he and other Republicans see as the deals failure to prevent Iran from developing weapons down the road.

Those concerns are one of the main areas that Republicans are planning to address in their legislative response to the presidents decision, according to a person familiar with plans being hammered out between the White House, State Department and Capitol Hill.

Abby Phillip and Ed OKeefe contributed to this report.

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Trump plans to declare that Iran nuclear deal is not in the ...

It was the first time Mr. Zarif had met with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who has said the United States wants to revisit what he described as flaws in the accord even as he acknowledged Iran is abiding by its terms.

Mr. Zarif, who negotiated details of the Iran accord with then-Secretary of State John Kerry, dismissed the Trump administration as seriously ill-informed about the limits on Iran contained in the deal.

He described President Trumps speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, in which Mr. Trump called the nuclear accord a one-sided embarrassment to the United States that he may abandon, as absurd.

What the administration really wanted, Mr. Zarif said, was to keep the Iranian concessions while trying to extract more from Iran but with no new concessions from the United States or other parties. That kind of position, he said, contradicted the premise of any negotiated deal.

By definition, a deal is not perfect, because in any deal you have to give and take, he said. Otherwise you wont have a deal.

He further dismissed the idea of an addendum to the agreement to address the Trump administrations objections, an idea that American officials say has been floated within the administration as a possible diplomatic way forward.

Why should we discuss an addendum?, Mr. Zarif said. If you want to have an addendum, there has to be an addendum on everything.

Mr. Trump has strongly hinted he is prepared to decertify Irans compliance with the deal, even while Mr. Tillerson, speaking to reporters after his encounter with Mr. Zarif on Wednesday evening, acknowledged that Iran is in technical compliance.

Under an American law, a decertification would not terminate the deal, unless Congress voted to reimpose nuclear-related economic sanctions against Iran which would violate the terms of the accord.

The White House has been divided about how to proceed against Iran, with Mr. Tillerson arguing that to tear up the Obama-era agreement would alienate allies and empower Iran to resume production of nuclear fuel.

Nonetheless, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Tillerson contend that Iran has violated the spirit of the nuclear accord by continuing to sponsor groups that the United States regards as terrorist organizations, supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and pursuing cyber attacks against Irans Sunni Arab neighbors and the United States.

Mr. Zarif said those complaints were all beyond the scope of the agreement struck in July of 2015, a position shared by other parties to the accord except the United States.

And the Iranian minister, who was harshly criticized in Iran for surrendering too much in the negotiation, said that if the United States walked away from the accord, as Mr. Trump threatened, Who would come and listen to you anymore?

With such a threat, he said, The United States is sending the wrong signal.

Iranian officials seem to be betting that Mr. Trump, for all his criticism of the accord, will not blow it up. Washington has already run into resistance to any effort to reopen the terms, and Europeans have privately told the United States they will not reimpose nuclear sanctions on Iran even if the Americans do, undercutting any leverage Mr. Trump might hope to achieve.

Mr. Zarif said he was heartened that during a meeting of all the participants in the meeting on Wednesday evening at the United Nations Security Council, everybody, with one exception, said this is a good deal. The one was a clear reference to Mr. Tillerson.

In fact, after the Wednesday night meeting, the foreign minister of Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, speaking in German outside the Security Council, told reporters: To cancel this agreement would send a very negative signal. It will be much more difficult to find a diplomatic solution to other conflicts about nuclear proliferation, notably North Korea.

Iran analysts who have followed the course of the nuclear agreement said it is facing the most turbulent time since its inception. Still, some saw reason to believe the agreement could survive and outlive the Trump administration.

Trump has an established pattern of shock and awe opening positions in negotiations, only to later back off or end up in the middle, Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, said in an emailed advisory to clients on Thursday.

If he holds to hard-line demands, possibly including permanent restrictions on Irans program, the deal may well fall apart and blame would lie right on Washingtons front porch, Mr. Kupchan said. Thats an outcome the U.S. doesnt want.

Read more from the original source:
Iran Foreign Minister: If U.S. Wants New Nuclear Concessions ...

President Donald Trump indicated Wednesday that he has made a decision on the future of the Iran nuclear deal, but refused to offer additional information.

"I have decided," Trump told reporters three times this morning as he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "I'll let you know what the decision is."

During his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump hinted he would withdraw from the deal, which he called "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into" and an "embarrassment" to the country. The agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, limits Iran's nuclear development capabilities in exchange for the easing of related sanctions. It was negotiated by the Obama administration.

Though highly critical of the deal, the Trump administration has largely abided by it. Last Thursday, Trump signed a waiver on sanctions against Iran and the administration has confirmed that Iran has been compliant with the deal's terms.

If the U.S. were to pull out of the deal, Trump would cease to sign future sanctions waivers or decertify the accord ahead of an Oct. 14 deadline. By that date, the administration must again notify Congress of Iran's observance of the deal's conditions. In the latter scenario, Congress could choose to reinstate the agreement over a 60-day period by a majority vote.

Trump gave an equally coy response Monday when asked about the future of the deal, telling reporters then, "You will see very soon."

ABC News' Conor Finnegan and Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.

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Trump says he has reached decision on Iran deal: 'I'll let ...

Returning to Washington on Air Force One on Thursday after touring hurricane-ravaged South Florida, Mr. Trump again criticized the Iran agreement, but he talked around the question of whether he would adhere to it. Instead, he promised other action against Iran.

We are not going to stand for what theyre doing to this country, he told reporters. They have violated so many different elements, but theyve also violated the spirit of that deal. And you will see what well be doing in October. It will be very evident.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said Iran has complied with its commitments under the arrangement, including inspections.

An approach that stops short of leaving the agreement is unlikely to satisfy its conservative critics, who attacked it as President Barack Obamas cave-in to Iran, an American adversary of nearly four decades. Nor does it promise to satisfy those who see the deal as a building block for engagement with Iran.

Even Washingtons closest ally, Britain, has openly split with those in the administration arguing to ditch the accord. At a news conference in London on Thursday with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, Britains foreign minister, Boris Johnson, noted that the North Korea crisis shows the importance of having arrangements such as the J.C.P.O.A., using the acronym for the formal name of the agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

He called it a position you and I have both adopted, underscoring Mr. Tillersons now widely acknowledged disagreement with Mr. Trump over the importance of the deal.

Mr. Johnson added that in Iran, a country of 80 million people, many of them young, potentially liberal, could be won over could be won over to a new way of thinking. He said that Iranians should see the economic benefits of the nuclear deal and that he had emphasized the point to Mr. Tillerson and other American officials.

Mr. Trumps gradual movement on Iran has been seen as a bellwether of a foreign policy shift underway in the White House, especially since the ouster of Stephen K. Bannon, his former strategist. Mr. Bannon had made confrontation with China and Iran a central element of his approach to reasserting American pre-eminence around the world.

Two of the presidents remaining advisers, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, his national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, are known for hawkish views on Iran. But they do not bring to the debate a sense that the United States is engaged in a clash of civilizations against the country or its ideology. Instead, they have pressed for a quiet escalation of economic and military pushback against Tehrans activities, including support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and terrorist groups as well as cyberattacks on American and Arab targets.

The Treasury Department did announce new economic sanctions on Thursday against individuals associated with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Quds Force, which is considered a channel to terrorist groups, and companies involved in hacking against American financial institutions in 2011 and 2012.

In announcing the new sanctions, a senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity while briefing a large group of reporters, said that over the past few years, the United States had focused too narrowly on nuclear issues and ignored Irans malign activities. But the administration made no mention of the 2016 indictment of seven Iranians for their involvement in that hacking.

It is unclear whether Mr. Trump can persuade his supporters to forget about promises to scrap the agreement, and to focus anew on extending it. Even advocates of the deal in the Obama administration admit to its shortcomings, including the failure to get Iran to give up all enrichment of uranium. Irans nuclear facilities remain open but are operating at very low levels.

Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted on Thursday that the agreement he reached with his counterpart at the time, Secretary of State John Kerry, was not renegotiable. A better deal is pure fantasy, he wrote. About time for U.S. to stop spinning and begin complying, just like Iran.

Mr. Zarif will be in New York next week for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, as will Mr. Tillerson. The two men have never met, nor talked, and there are no plans to change that.

Mr. Trump plans to make concerted moves against Iran and North Korea, a centerpiece of his speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, administration officials say. But it is unclear how specific he will get.

As they slowly clear their way toward a policy, they clearly believe it is very important that the U.S. push back on the Iranians, Kenneth M. Pollack, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said of Trump administration officials on Thursday.

But they appear to have concluded that rather than unravel the deal, they need to find ways to renegotiate elements of it, he added.

Mr. Tillerson has argued that it is possible to both retain the existing deal and get allies on board for extending the duration of the restrictions on Irans nuclear activities, while negotiating over Irans development and testing of ballistic missiles.

But he is clearly walking a fine line. It is possible, White House officials say, that Mr. Trump will stop short of blowing up the accord but still insist on declaring to Congress next month that Iran is violating its terms. Such a move would not affect the future of the agreement itself, while a reimposition of congressional sanctions would have violated its terms.

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Trump Signals He Will Choose Approach on Iran That Preserves ...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out the U.S. case to European allies about flaws in the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord, hours after President Donald Trump said hes made his decision about whether to walk away from the pact -- but wouldnt reveal what it was.

Tillerson emphasized that the agreement hasnt stopped Iran from playing a destabilizing role in the Middle East, with its support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, its development of ballistic missiles and its funding of terrorism.

We clearly have significant issues with the agreement, Tillerson told reporters on Wednesday after meeting in New York withhis counterparts from Iran and the six world powers that signed the agreement. Its pretty difficult to say that the expectations of the parties that negotiated this agreement have been met.

Tillerson spoke hours after Trump declared three times to reporters in New York I have decided, when asked whether he intends to yank the U.S. from the pact signed by China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K. and the European Union after months of agonizing negotiations.

Trump, who called the deal an embarrassment to the United States in his combative speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, has until October 15 to tell Congress if Iran is sticking to the terms of the deal and whether the agreement remains in the U.S. national security interest. He and his advisers contend that the accord simply postpones the day when Iran will be able to develop a nuclear weapon because many of its toughest restrictions expire in 2025 or 2030.

The U.S. stance has left it isolated against the six other nations that agreed to the deal.

Speaking after the evening meeting where the U.S. laid out its case,Federica Mogherini, the European Unions foreign policy chief, said the group would make sure the deal sticks even if the U.S. walks away.She said the world didnt need another nuclear nonproliferation crisis along with the struggle to contain North Koreas own ambition to obtain atomic weapons.

The agreement is working and delivering for its purpose, Mogherini said. We already have one potential nuclear crisis -- we definitely dont need to go into a second one.

In recent weeks, U.S. diplomats have approached European officials to see if they would join in demanding an extension to the limits on Irans uranium enrichment that will expire in coming years.

Tillerson said that after Trump made his comment, British Prime MinisterTheresa May asked asked him if he would share it with her and he said no.

In his comments to reporters, Tillerson said the U.S. has been making the case to increase pressure on Iran and that other countries are now looking more carefully and seriously at doing so, though he didnt specify what that might entail. The meeting was Tillersons first with Irans foreign minister, and Tillerson described the encounter as matter of fact.

There was no yelling, we didnt throw shoes at one another, he said.

Irans President Hassan Rouhani told the UN on Wednesday that a rogue newcomer to politics threatens to destroy the nuclear deal. Iran will not be the first country to violate the agreement, but it will respond decisively and resolutely to its violation by any party, he said.

The accord belongs to the international community in its entirety, and not to only one or two countries, Rouhani said. He told reporters later that Iran rejects any renegotiation of the deal. If anyone exits the agreement it means our hand is completely open to take any action we see beneficial for us.

Read More: A QuickTake Q&A on whether the U.S. will torpedo the Iran deal

Most countries backing the agreement cite findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is meeting the letter of its responsibilities under the accord. The 2015 deal provided an easing of international economic sanctions in return for curbs on the Islamic Republics nuclear program.

Mays spokesman James Slack told reporters in New York that she met Wednesday morning with Rouhani and she reiterated the importance of the deal.

The most direct rebuttal to Trump came from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said in his UN speech Tuesday that the Iran agreement is robust and to put it into question without anything to replace it is a grave error.

Macrons remarks were an ominous sign for Tillersons efforts because proponents of toughening the deal had pointed to France as the country least satisfied with the accord when it was reached and most likely to get on board for changes. But the French government has changed since then.

If we denounce the accord, do we better manage nuclear proliferation? Macron said in his speech to the General Assembly. I dont think so.

Still, Macron did leave some room for meeting Trump partway on Iran, saying on Wednesday that he was willing to discuss new measures to limit Irans ballistic missile development, begin talks on what happens after 2025 and discuss Irans role in regional conflicts -- all without undoing the original accord.

In addition to requiring the support-- or at least acquiescence -- of Iran, any reopening the deal would require support from Russia and China. Speaking to reporters Wednesday after meeting with Tillerson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Trumps stance on the nuclear deal very worrying and said his country would defend the deal.

With assistance by Margaret Talev, Robert Hutton, Henry Meyer, and Gregory Viscusi

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Trump Says Hes Made His Iran Deal Decision - Bloomberg