US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said that the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, was a bad agreement which Iran has repeatedly violated.
Ambassador Haley spoke at the American Enterprise Institute about the deal Tuesday.
The ambassador said that the JCPOA is "a very flawed and very limited agreement. But even so, Iran has been caught in multiple violations over the past year and a half."
She said that Iranian violations of the agreement began soon after it was signed. "In February 2016 – just a month after the agreement was implemented – the IAEA discovered Iran had exceeded its allowable limit of heavy water. Nine months later, Iran exceeded the heavy water limit again. Both times, the Obama Administration helped Iran get back into compliance and refused to declare it a violation."
Ambassador Haley accused the Obama Administration of putting the deal ahead of all other concerns, and said that the JCPOA prevents the US and the international community from acting to put an end to Iran's other destabilizing activities, such as its control of multiple international terrorist organizations.
"Another major flaw in the JCPOA is its penalty provisions. Whether an Iranian violation is big or small – whether it is deemed to be material or non-material – the deal provides for only one penalty. That penalty is the re-imposition of sanctions," she said
"And if sanctions are re-imposed, Iran is then freed from all the commitments it made.
"Think about that. There is an absurdly circular logic to enforcement of this deal. Penalizing its violations don’t make the deal stronger, they blow it up.
"Iran’s leaders know this. They are counting on the world brushing off relatively minor infractions, or even relatively major ones. They are counting on the United States and the other parties to the agreement being so invested in its success that they overlook Iranian cheating. That is exactly what our previous administration did."
Ambassador Haley said that US President Donald Trump would present his evaluation of Iranian compliance with the deal to Congress next month. Under the Corker-Cardin law, the president will also have to tell Congress whether the removal of sanctions on Iran continues to serve the interests of the US.
According to the ambassador, the US and the world must deal with all of Iran's actions and not subordinate its terrorist activity and ballistic missile development to a flawed deal on its nuclear program. "In short, we must consider the whole picture, not simply whether Iran has exceeded the JCPOA’s limit on uranium enrichment. We must consider the whole jigsaw puzzle, not just one of its pieces."
"That’s the judgment President Trump will make in October."