It was already clear by the time President Trump addressed the
assembled White House press corps on Tuesday 8th May that the US
was going to put some sort of dent in the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA), the clunkily named nuclear deal reached between
the P5+1 (the permanent 5 UN Security Council members plus Germany)
and Iran. But any doubt as to the extent of the damage he was
prepared to do to the deal was emphatically blown away as the
President announced the re-introduction of what he termed the
"highest level of economic sanctions".
The Iran deal was always a creature of compromise. Aside from
its utilitarian moniker, it was dependent for its survival on
continued waivers of US secondary sanctions by the US President (a
function of the congressional approval of the deal in the first
place). It was also limited – quite deliberately – in
the scope of its ambition: it did not seek to settle disputes
concerning Iranian intervention in regional conflicts,
