Here’s What Will Happen When Trump Decertifies the Iran Nuclear Deal

As we’ve previously reported, Donald Trump plans to decertify the Iran nuclear deal. He is expected to announce as such in a midday speech today.

Trump’s entire foreign policy so far has been to remove the United States from any and all agreements he feels aren’t one-sidedly benefiting America. The Washington Post reports on all the deals he’s already backed out of (including the Paris Climate Agreement). But the Iran deal is different, because Trump hates it the mostest. Despite a divide amongst his advisers, Trump is dead set on “decertifying” it.

In fact, he’s so emotional about this deal that reports say he’s had multiple furious arguments with his own staff about it. Here’s a quote from CNN:

Trump made known in “forceful, not uncertain” terms that he was disappointed by the options his team had been presenting him and wanted a different approach, according to a person familiar with the discussions, who described Trump’s reaction as an “extended outburst.” The confrontation came around July 17, when he last certified Iran’s compliance in the deal.

A “confrontation”? He threw a tantrum. You can call it that.

Ultimately, the certification of the Iran deal is in Trump’s hands alone, and he is going to nix it for a more “combative” approach, according to that same CNN report. However, even among Trump’s staff, everyone knows this decertification will result in nothing but instability, both in terms of international politics and the Middle East. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has expressed a firm desire to keep the deal intact, and a spokesman for the Kremlin said decertification will have “very, very negative consequences.” British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emanuel Macron both told Trump they were against decertification, as well.

This, of course, does not matter to Trump, who is an idiot. He still plans to decertify the deal, which will allow Iran to back out and ramp up their nuclear activity. He still plans to force Congress to come up with a solution—he won’t come up with one himself, because as his own aides say in the CNN article, he’s more interested in making “bellicose threats” than actually improving anything.

Congress will thus have to figure out a fix to the problem in the next 60 days. The Trump administration wants them to redevelop the deal with new parameters and stricter inspection guidelines. (Most international experts say that if they do that, Iran will just back out of the deal entirely.) Trump expects this to happen while Congress is facing several divisive issues already, and while the United States more aggressively threatens Iran over their ballistic missile tests.

The really fun part? The man in charge of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will oversee the majority of the Iran proceedings should Trump decertify the deal, is none other than Bob Corker, who recently called the White House an adult day care center.