Beyond betting that Iran’s leaders will return to the negotiating table, and seek a better deal, once they feel the sanctions’ bite, the president appeared to acknowledge that he has no Plan B for dealing with Tehran. [...]
On Wednesday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ultimately approved the terms of the 2015 deal, declared that his country will need 20,000 megawatts of nuclear electricity for its power grid. He did not explicitly suggest resuming uranium enrichment, but for years Iran insisted that its nuclear program was for civilian use — even though it was already buying fuel from Russia to power its one major reactor.
After Mr. Trump announced his decision, the leaders of Britain, France and Germany on Tuesday reaffirmed their support for a United Nations Security Council resolution that formally endorsed the accord. The European leaders asserted that the resolution was the applicable international law governing the Iranian nuclear problem — a way of suggesting that the United States is the first country to violate the accord.
They also noted that Mr. Trump’s own intelligence officials — including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when he was serving as C.I.A. director — have said he saw no evidence that Iran had violated the deal.
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