The New York Times - 12.09.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019 N A

The 45th PresidentForeign Policy

WASHINGTON — President
Trump appeared to take a step
back from his administration’s
“maximum pressure” campaign
against Iran on Wednesday, leav-
ing open the possibility of easing
economic sanctions before start-
ing new nuclear negotiations with
Tehran.
Although he also warned Iran
against restarting production of
the material necessary to make a
nuclear bomb — as the clerical
government in Tehran has threat-
ened — Mr. Trump made clear he
was ready for diplomatic talks.
“I do believe they’d like to make
a deal,” Mr. Trump told reporters
at the White House. “If they do,
that’s great; and if they don’t,
that’s great too. But they have
tremendous financial difficulty,
and the sanctions are getting
tougher and tougher.”
He shrugged when asked if he
would consider easing the sanc-
tions to secure a meeting with
Iran. “We’ll see what happens,”
Mr. Trump said.
His subtle yet startling signal
about relaxing the sanctions came
just a day after the president un-
ceremoniously ousted John R.
Bolton, the White House national
security adviser who opposed dé-
tente with Iran.
Iran’s leaders have long in-
sisted that the United States must
first lift its sanctions before they
will agree to meet with Mr. Trump.
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran
repeated that demand just hours
before Mr. Trump’s comments.
“If the sanctions remain in
place, negotiations with the U.S.
administration have no meaning,”
Mr. Rouhani said in a telephone
call on Wednesday with President
Emmanuel Macron of France, ac-
cording to Iran’s official Islamic
Republic News Agency.
The earliest, and most easily ar-
ranged, meeting would be at the
annual United Nations General
Assembly of world leaders this
month.
Mr. Trump is to address the
world body on Sept. 24, followed
by Mr. Rouhani the next day. Dis-
cussions on the sidelines of the
forum are a routine part of the dip-
lomatic pageantry, although Mr.
Rouhani has yet to meet with an
American president; the closest

he came was a 2013 telephone call,

from his car as he was leaving the

United Nations, with President

Barack Obama.

Mr. Trump and Secretary of

State Mike Pompeo have both

floated the possibility of a meeting

at the United Nations. A similar ef-

fort for Mr. Trump and Mr.

Rouhani to meet at the United Na-

tions in 2017 collapsed.

The American sanctions

against Iran were imposed last

year, after Mr. Trump withdrew

the United States from an accord

that was struck with world pow-

ers in 2015 to limit Tehran’s nucle-

ar program. The economic penal-

ties have largely stopped foreign

governments and businesses

seeking to invest in Iran, or to buy

its oil and other goods.

It is part of the “maximum pres-

sure” campaign to isolate Iran and

force it back into negotiations for a

new deal — one that Mr. Trump

wants to not only limit Iran’s nu-

clear program, but also to stop its

production of ballistic missiles

and halt support for extremist

groups across the Middle East, in-

cluding Hezbollah, Hamas and, in

Yemen, the Houthi rebels.

Though the sanctions campaign

has crippled Iran’s economy, it has

not stopped China from importing

its oil.

And it has frustrated France

and other close American allies,

who are now working to create a

barter system with Tehran that

would keep financial channels

open but not violate the American

sanctions. Mr. Macron has also

dangled the possibility of a $15 bil-

lion bailout to Iran to bring it back

into compliance with the 2015

deal.

As he faces re-election next

year, Mr. Trump has been search-

ing for a diplomatic victory involv-

ing a host of adversaries, includ-

ing North Korea, Venezuela and

the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Signs of Mr. Trump’s softening

against Iran have surfaced over

the summer.

In June, and at the last minute,

Mr. Trump called off missile

strikes against Iran that his advis-

ers had endorsed to punish

Tehran for downing an unmanned

American surveillance drone.

Last month, at the Group of 7

meeting in Biarritz, France, Mr.

Trump said “we’re looking to

make Iran rich again” and made

clear he did not support attempts

to overthrow Iran’s supreme

leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

At a speech last week in Man-

hattan, Kan., Mr. Pompeo de-

scribed Mr. Trump as “happy” to

meet Iranian leaders and said the

administration wanted to end the

standoff with Tehran. Besides Mr.

Bolton, Mr. Pompeo has been one

of the Trump administration’s

fiercest hawks against Iran’s gov-

ernment and, experts said, has

largely stopped talking about 12

demands he wants Tehran to meet

before sanctions are lifted. (Mr.

Pompeo quickly clarified himself

in Kansas to note that “ ‘happy’

might overstate it a bit.”)

On Tuesday, Mr. Bolton walked

out of his White House job. And on

Wednesday, Mr. Trump opened

the door to easing sanctions on

Iran to get Mr. Rouhani to a meet-

ing.

“Trump really needs something

before the election, and Iran

knows that,” said Gary Sick, an

Iran scholar at Columbia Univer-

sity who worked on the National

Security Council for three presi-

dents in the 1970s and 1980s. “So,

in effect, Iran is negotiating from a

position of strength.”

Mr. Sick said the American

sanctions have indeed stung

Iran’s economy, and pointed to

strong steps the Trump adminis-

tration continues to take against

Iran, including designating its Is-

lamic Revolutionary Guards

Corps as a terrorist organization

last spring.

Just last week, the Trump ad-

ministration imposed a new set of

sanctions against an elaborate

shipping network that Iran uses to

sell oil, offering a $15 million re-

ward to those who help disrupt it.

Mr. Sick said the United States

could now consider again waiving

sanctions against some countries

that rely on Iran’s oil exports, such

as India, Japan, South Korea and

Turkey. China was by far the big-

gest buyer of Iran’s daily export of

one million barrels but is unlikely

to be given a waiver after one of its

state-owned companies was

found in June to be violating the

sanctions.

“It was clear from the outset

that the kind of strangulation that

was being applied to Iran made it

impossible for any Iranian leader

to give in,” Mr. Sick said. But, he

added, “Iran was not going to col-

lapse, and now Trump is clarifying

his policy.”

This summer, Iran has taken a

series of technical steps that vio-

late the terms of the 2015 accord, a

gambit to force European leaders

to hasten efforts to ease the sanc-

tions’ bite. Mr. Sick said all of

Iran’s moves, to this point, are eas-

ily and quickly reversible.

Over the weekend, Mr. Rouhani

announced that Iran was prepar-

ing to restart its production of

highly enriched uranium, the ma-

terial needed to build a nuclear

weapon. Doing so would most

likely scuttle any hope of resur-

recting the nuclear accord with

world powers, as Mr. Macron has

been trying to do.

“If they’re thinking about en-

richment, they can forget about

it,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday.

“Because it’s going to be very dan-

gerous for them to enrich.”

In his remarks, Mr. Trump

ridiculed Mr. Bolton as “Mr. Tough

Guy,” accusing him of warmon-

gering in the Middle East and

hurting the now-stalled negotia-

tions with Kim Jong-un, the North

Korean leader. The president also

said Mr. Bolton was “way out of

line” against the government of

President Nicolás Maduro in Ven-

ezuela, although he did not say

how.

“You know, John wasn’t in line

with what we were doing,” Mr.

Trump said.

Mr. Bolton’s departure precipi-

tated the beginning of a broader

housecleaning at the National Se-

curity Council, which will compli-

cate policymaking and diplomacy

until vacancies are filled. Several

of Mr. Bolton’s longtime advisers

left the White House on Wednes-

day. Others are expected to leave

in the coming days.

U.S. Leaves Open Plan of Easing Sanctions on Iran to Spur Nuclear Talks

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran in Tehran. He is scheduled to attend a meeting of world leaders at the United Nations in two weeks.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Farnaz Fassihi contributed report-
ing from New York.

By LARA JAKES

The

Annual Sale

To d ay – 9/ 2 4

Reimagine modern with hundreds of new and classic designs.

Knoll Home Design Shops

NEW YORK 1330 Avenue of the Americas | 212 343-

LOS ANGELES 314 North Robertson Boulevard | 310 620-

D&D Showroom

NEW YORK 979 Third Avenue, Suite 1523 | 212 688-

Shop knoll.com or Find a Retailer at knoll.com/location