By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--July 19, 2017
American Politics, NewsNews Headlines | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
At a midnight deadline Monday, the Trump administration certified that Iran was complying with the nuclear deal. By law, the U.S. must issue certification every 90 days. This is the second time Trump's government has done so. It came with last-minute drama this time, as Trump balked at certification — against the wishes of his principal national security advisors, according to by a person close to the White House who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal debate.
On Monday, after talking points for certifying Iran's compliance already had been distributed within the administration, Trump told senior advisors he was having second thoughts and wanted other options. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson came to the Oval Office around 1:30 p.m. for a previously scheduled and unrelated meeting with Trump, but the discussion was dominated by what to do with the Iran deal. Tillerson argued that allies needed more notice before stating Iran wasn’t complying with the deal. Trump national security advisor H.R. McMaster and other senior advisors present, including Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also made the case for holding off. But Steve Bannon, Trump’s strategic advisor who keeps a list of Trump’s campaign pledges on a white board in his White House office, said Trump should follow through with his promise to tear up the deal. After nearly an hour, Trump agreed to support certification, but demanded a plan for getting tougher on Iran. Facing the midnight deadline to inform Congress, advisors were still were tweaking the wording of the announcement as late as 9:30 p.m.
Hours after the certification, the administration announced the new sanctions for Iran's separate actions. The penalties are the latest in a long list of attempts to punish Tehran. "Iran’s other malign activities are serving to undercut whatever 'positive contributions' to regional and international peace and security were intended to emerge from the" nuclear agreement, Nauert said. Besides Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the new sanctions target the military's support of so-called "fast attack boats," which are the small vessels Iran uses to harass U.S. ships in the region's waters.This is exactly what a president should do. It is not his job to simply rubber-stamp what his advisors suggest. They advise. They don't decide. He chooses the priorities for the administration, and their job is to help him execute those priorities. And in a situation like this, where it's not easy or obvious how to deal with the situation at hand, it's to Trump's credit that he gave the matter a lot of thought and challenged his team to come up with a better plan than the original one. A president who gets along by going along just says yes to whatever the conventional wisdom suggests. That's the path of least resistance, and usually the least achievement as well.
View Comments
Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.