If Congress imposes new sanctions that look suspiciously like those the United States lifted under the JCPOA, Iran could walk away from the deal, Maloney warned.
“In effect we just begin a process that has real unintended consequences in terms of potentially driving the Iranians out of the deal and creating the conditions for its slow erosion over time,” she said.
Dubowitz rejects the notion that Europeans are focused on decertification, or that it diminishes U.S. leverage over the continent.
“It’s all a diplomatic dance, but the reality on the ground is the Europeans want above all to preserve the deal, and the fear that Trump or Republicans will walk away from the deal has motivated them to now look at ways to fix it,” he said.
What Europeans fear most, he says, is the prospect of a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, so-called secondary sanctions that can lock European firms out of the U.S. market and dollar transactions, and the type of multi-billion-dollar fines slapped on European banks by U.S. regulators in recent years.
“All of those fears have been heightened under a president they believe is much more willing to use coercive American power,” he said.
