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Comment and Opinion

The Atlantic: Here’s how to fix but not nix the Iran deal, by Robert Satloff

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Two years ago, I urged senators to vote “no” on the Iran nuclear deal. My goal was not to have them scrap the accord, which had numerous positive benefits, but to give President Barack Obama leverage to repair its serious flaws. “No,” I argued,  “doesn’t necessarily mean ‘no, never.’ It can also mean ‘not now, not this way.’ It may be the best way to get to ‘yes.’”

The idea of “nix to fix”—not to be confused with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “nix or fix” slogan—didn’t win a lot of support in 2015 but it’s back, thanks to President Trump’s decision not to certify the deal under the terms of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and to seek INARA’s revision by Congress. Now, his administration may have the standing to win from other signatories, especially the Europeans, support for correcting many of its faults. Such improvements would give the president a strong rationale to recertify the agreement down the road.

Achieving this outcome won’t be easy but it’s doable. Here are three core problems of the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action  (JCPOA), and how President Trump could correct them, without requiring Iran to renegotiate any terms of the deal.

Read the full article at The Atlantic.