BICOM

US Secretary of Defence James Mattis told a Senate hearing yesterday that he believed the Iran deal was in the interest of US national security.

During a session of the Senate Armed Services Committee he was asked by Senator  Angus King to answer “yes” or “no” as to whether he believed that the Iran deal was in US “national security interest at the present time”. Mattis responded: “Yes, senator, I do”.

Mattis added “the point I would make is if we can confirm that Iran is living by the agreement, if we can determine that this is in our best interests then clearly we should stay with it. I believe at this point in time absent indications to the contrary, it is something the President should consider staying with”.

Mattis did say however that he supports a rigorous review of national security issues related to Iran that may fall outside of the specific terms of the agreement.

He said that “the President has to consider more broadly things that rightly fall under his portfolio of looking out for the American people in areas that go beyond the specific letters of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — in that regard I support the rigorous review that he has got going on right now. Absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the President should consider staying with”.

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act requires President Trump to certify to Congress every three month that Iran is meeting the terms of the JCPOA the nuclear deal with Iran.

The next deadline for verification is 15 October. Trump denounced the deal as “an embarrassment to the US” in a speech to the UN General Assembly and announced that he had made a decision on whether he would certify or not.

Critics of the deal say that the  JCPOA fails to address Iran’s continued development of ballistic missiles or it’s activities in the Middle East supporting organisations engaged in acts of terrorism.

If Trump does declare Iran in breach of the deal the agreement will not fall apart as there are five other countries who are signatories including the UK, France and Germany. It would give Congress the authority to increase sanctions against Iran and the White House could introduce “secondary sanctions” that could cut off European and other banks and businesses that do business with Iran from doing business in the US.

At a meeting with reporters in the American ambassador’s residence in Beijing over the weekend, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hinted that he was pressing President Trump to certify to Congress that Iran was in compliance with the JCPOA.