On Tuesday, Trump did it. He showed the world they cannot trust the United States to abide by any treaty or agreement. He did it by announcing to the world that the United States would not abide by the Iran Agreement. Instead, the United States would immediately restore its own economic sanctions against Iran. This is the second time Trump has trashed an agreement made by the United States. The first was the Paris Accords on global climate change.
Trump also talked about the coming North Korean talks, and assured everyone that he could be trusted to keep his word. How is that trust possible when he has already trashed two agreements made by this country?
Trump tried to justify his idiotic decision by telling a series of lies. He said the Iranians were cheating on the agreement. But the IAEA inspectors, our European allies, and our own intelligence agencies say Iran was not cheating -- but was abiding by the terms of the agreement.
Trump said our European allies had agreed with him that Iran must not have nuclear weapons. This is true, but his inference was that they agreed with his decision to violate the terms of the agreement, and that is outrageously false.
Trump said the agreement was bad because it did not include a curb to other activities by Iran (missile development, support of terrorists, etc.), and an agreement could have easily been reached that included those things. The truth is it took many years just to get an agreement on curbing Iran's nuclear activities, and that was the primary purpose of the agreement.
Trump said Iran had supported al-Queda -- a ridiculous lie. The al-Queda terrorists were SUNNI muslims, while Iran is SHIITE muslim. They have supported some Shiite groups, but never al-Queda (which got most of its support from our ally, Saudi Arabia (a Sunni state).
Trump said the inspections were not adequate. Our allies and the IAEA inspectors disagreed. The inspections are the strictest ever imposed on a country, and would have discovered any Iranian attempt to cheat.
The truth is that Trump just went against the wishes of the American public (see chart above) to please his ignorant base of deplorables. He was hoping the lies would cover for his stupid action. I don't think it will.
The chart above is from a new CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between May 2nd and 5th of a random national sample of 1,015 adults, with a margin of error of 3.6 points.
