On May 23 and 24, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the State Department Budget for 2019. The hearings came days after Pompeo unveiled a new strategy to counter Iran after the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.
European leaders questioned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's reasoning for the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and his call for a new, all-encompassing Iran deal. "Secretary Pompeo’s speech has not demonstrated how walking away from the JCPOA has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the scope of JCPOA," said E.U. foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. "There is no alternative to the JCPOA."
On May 10, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemning the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal and reimposition of sanctions on Tehran.
In a poll conducted before the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal, a majority of Iranians said they would support retaliation against the United States if it abrogated the accord. The IranPoll survey also showed that 92 percent of Iranians had no confidence that the United States would live up to its nuclear deal obligations. And only 54 percent of respondents were confident that other world powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia -- would live up to their obligations.
On May 10, Israeli jets struck some 70 Iranian targets in Syria in response to rocket fire attributed to Iran. It was Israel’s largest attack carried out in Syria since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, according to an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson.
The U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal was the top story in Iranian newspapers on May 9, the day after President Donald Trump’s announcement. His decision produced common cause among Iran’s diverse political cartoonists through the end of the month. The Islamic Republic has a broad political spectrum—ranging from reformists to hardline principlists—that is reflected in an equally broad range of media outlets. But they uniformly depicted the U.S. decision as self-destructive and Iran as resilient.
On May 8, President Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. Israel and the Gulf states welcomed Trump's decision. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Trump's decision as an "historic move" and praised his "courageous leadership." Iran's rival, Saudi Arabia, condemned Tehran's destabilizing behavior in the region.
Foreign policy and nonproliferation experts issued a range of reactions to President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal. Some critics of the accord thought the move was risky. "I would've preferred to see a US-E3 agreement first," Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense for Democracies said. "I certainly understand President Trump's motivation but it's a big risk," said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector. Supporters of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) said U.S. credibility had been damaged.
On May 8, President Trump withdrew from the landmark Obama-era Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran. Former President Barack Obama and other officials from his administration criticized Trump's move. "Walking away from the JCPOA turns our back on America’s closest allies, and an agreement that our country’s leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals negotiated," Obama said. "Without the JCPOA, the United States could eventually be left with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East," he added.
Members of Congress were divided over President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal. Many Republicans and Democrats criticized the president's decision or at least regretted not being able to reach a supplemental agreement with European allies. U.S. diplomats had been quietly negotiating with their British, French and German counterparts since January to address Trump's issues with the accord. "I have always believed the best course of action is to fix the deficiencies in the agreement," House Speaker Paul Ryan said.
