“The AUTOPEN,” US president Donald Trump wrote on his “Truth Social” platform on June 2 (referring to Joe Biden), “should have stopped Iran a long time ago from ‘enriching.’ Under our potential Agreement — WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!”

Trump’s absolutely right, but only in three ways that don’t reflect the pomposity of his post:

Firstly, the Iranian regime has made clear that there is no “potential agreement” under which it will give up its ability and prerogative to enrich uranium.

Secondly, the US regime never has been, and is not now, in any position to “allow” or “not allow” the Iranian regime to enrich uranium. Nor could it put itself in any such position short of winning a major war against a much bigger and more powerful opponent  than it faced — and lost to — in Afghanistan.

And thirdly, there’s already an agreement. Not a “potential” agreement, an actual one.

It’s called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka the “Iran nuclear deal,” and although Trump claims to have “withdrawn” the US from it since 2018, he hasn’t.

The JCPOA is codified as a United Nations Security Council Resolution and is binding on all member states.  The only ways for Trump to “withdraw” the US from it are to “withdraw” the US from its UN membership entirely, or get the Security Council to repeal it (that’s not gonna happen). The US regime hasn’t left the JCPOA. The US is just in continuous violation of the JCPOA. There’s a difference.

Iran began enriching uranium to higher levels of purity — slowly moving toward “weapons grade” — after the US started violating that agreement and pressuring its allies to do likewise.

The Iranians have also been clear and consistent: They’ll be happy to stop enriching to those higher levels of purity, and mix the more highly enriched uranium into less pure uranium, when and if the US starts holding up its end of the agreement, which happens to be binding international law.

The JCPOA represented the culmination of a decade of negotiations consisting of US demands, Iranian acceptances, more US demands, more Iranian acceptances, rinse and repeat ad nauseam, until the US finally took “yes” for an answer.

After which, under Trump, the US defaulted on its own obligations while demanding even MORE from the Iranians. All this, it should be mentioned, in the absence of evidence that the Iranians were interested in developing, or attempting to develop, a nuclear weapon in the first place.

To which the Iranian response was, understandably, “OK, we’ll start enriching to higher levels than we were attempting even before we agreed to the deal — but we’ll stop if you’ll start holding up YOUR end.”

Trump’s powerless to “allow” or “not allow” the Iranians to do anything. Rage-posting on Truth Social won’t change that. He should instead offer them a “new” deal that’s just a freshly printed copy of the JCPOA, then declare “victory” when they accept. His supporters are probably gullible enough to consider that a Trump masterstroke.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY