Anticipating Trump's next move, aides prep Iran deal pullout

By MATTHEW LEE and JOSH LEDERMAN
Yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anticipating an unpredictable president’s next moves, U.S. officials have started actively planning for the likelihood that Donald Trump will announce next month that the U.S. is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. But no one knows exactly what would happen next or how Iran would respond.

Still, with less than five weeks until President Donald Trump’s deadline, national security officials are exploring various “day after” scenarios. Those include how to sell a pullout as the correct strategy, how aggressively to reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the agreement and how to deal with Iranian and European fallout from such a step, according to officials, diplomats and outside advisers to the administration.

The planning is at an early stage but has taken on greater urgency as the clock ticks toward mid-May, when Trump has said he’ll walk away unless his concerns are addressed. Another catalyst is the anticipated arrival of two new Trump aides strongly opposed to the deal: Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.

Pompeo, the CIA director nominated for secretary of state, was briefed last week on the Iran deal by top State Department aides, including Brian Hook, the policy planning chief, and Andrew Peek, the deputy assistant secretary for Iran, U.S. officials said.

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