Trump Poised to Decertify Iran Nuclear Deal
ROMANS: President Trump is expected to decertify the Iran deal today despite the international community's assessment that Tehran is in compliance. The president's plan will put the burden on Congress to find a way forward and it's raising concerns about a potential backlash that could set stage for another nuclear crisis.</s>BRIGGS: All right. Let's bring in CNN chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, live in London this morning. Great to see you, Christiane.</s>ROMANS: Good morning, Christiane.</s>BRIGGS: The talking points just released from the White House on this and it starts with the quote from president, it is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran's government ends its pursuit of death and destruction. What's the sense? This is a bad deal but one the United States should stay in?</s>CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, this is something that under the Trump administration and even in the campaign everybody has been looking at and fretting about because there are not just the United States but Russia, China, the European powers, it's an enshrined U.N. document now from the Security Council, and, of course, Iran. It took a long time, according to all the American officials who bargained for many months, more than a year over this, and struck the toughest deal that they possibly could, to deal with the issue that was considered the most dangerous issue emanating from Iran and that was a potential nuclear weapons issue. So, this deal is not perfect in that it does not deal with all the other issues that America is concerned about. And the rest of the world is concerned about, whether it's interference in Syria, whether it is interference in the region whether it is the accusations of supporting terrorism, all the other things that the rest of the world does not like about Iran, they couldn't get a whole basket deal to put everything in. Nobody was ready for that to happen. But the United States believes strongly that the most serious threat to world peace was a potential Iran nuclear weapons program. And therefore, that is what this deal is about. And that is what it has enshrined, that that's not possible for Iran under this deal. So, you can imagine all the international community has been reacting very, very strongly. They have been trying to lobby the United States not to refuse to recertify, which apparently President Trump plans to do, though it's not stated in the points that the White House has put out just now.</s>ROMANS: It sounds like the president doesn't like this deal, but he goes one step shy of killing U.S. participation in it, you know, trying to send the message that I don't like this deal, but we're sort of in there. I mean, he says -- he's leaving it to Congress to figure it out, Christiane.</s>AMANPOUR: Well, here's the thing, he doesn't like the deal and for whatever reason he made a big deal of it on the campaign trail, as if his base really gave a damn about the Iran deal or not. So, with colorful language about how this is the worst deal the United States is suffering and the United States hasn't gotten anything out of it, he's now having to sort of pony up to that kind of campaign language. Now, this deal, as I have said, envisions under the deal at least a decade and longer of many of the provisions that categorically stop Iran from any kind of nuclear weapons program. It has been certified by the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear agency, as working. And I spoke to some really hawkish people about this. For instance, Israel has never liked the deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not liked the deal and his former defense chief and former prime minister, Ehud Barak, did not and was very hawkish on Iran, but told me yesterday that it's a done deal and it would be bad for Israel and bad for America to pull out of the deal. This is what he said about it.</s>EHUD BARAK, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Yes. The deal, we believe, is a bad deal. I was hawkish on Iran during my service with government. It is a bad deal but it's a done deal. So, to decertify it now, it is basically throwing it to Congress, Congress will pull out of it. The real story is that the Iranians will be served by it, because other parties will not pull out, neither Chinese, Russians or the Europeans. So, they -- the Iranians will keep harvesting the benefits of this deal while the decertification will legitimize the intentions in the future to break out at will and explain it to the American behavior.</s>AMANPOUR: He went on to say that this at this time would be negative in regard of trying to contain the North Korea program, which is a nuclear weapons program, which actually has ICBMs and which actually is a very major nuclear threat. So, many people are talking about that. But certainly we had word from the Russian foreign ministry that they expect everybody a signatory to this deal, which is a U.N. Security Council resolution, to abide by it. We know that President Trump has been speaking to Prime Minister May, President Macron here in London and in Paris. They want this deal. They insist they're going to keep to the deal. So, the real question now is, Christine, the real question, is Congress going to pick up this decision by President Trump and decide actually to get out of the deal by re-imposing sanctions? If Congress does that, we're in a whole new territory and many believe an insecure territory that will not be in the U.S. national security interests.</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>BRIGGS: Not sure Congress could declare today Friday at this point. How they will get this done remains a mystery. Go ahead.</s>AMANPOUR: Remember, it's several month. Congress has a few months to decide. It's important situation that has been put in Congress' lap right now.</s>BRIGGS: Yes, hugely consequential.</s>ROMANS: Christiane Amanpour for in London this morning, great to see you, Christiane. Have a wonderful weekend.</s>BRIGGS: Thank you, Christiane. All right. To baseball, for the third straight year, the Cubs head to the NLCS, but it took a wild hard-stopping win over Washington to get there. Coy Wire with more in the "Bleacher Report", next.