US leaving Iran nuclear deal a reckless act

US President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday and reimposed sanctions on Teheran. Trump's unilateral action and some other developments suggest the Iran deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and signed by the Barack Obama administration in 2015, has been all but scrapped. The deal's future became uncertain also because the seven countries (Iran and the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany) that signed it had become increasingly divided.

Previously, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel failed to persuade Trump to not withdraw from the nuclear agreement and to desist from reimposing sanctions on Iran. Macron even echoed Trump's appeal to work out a new nuclear deal, which would have included Iran's long-range missile program, during his last visit to the United States. Apparently, Macron was trying to appease the Trump administration to consolidate its alliance with the US while averting the dismantling of the non-proliferation regime at the expense of Iran's interests.

Trump considered the Iran nuclear deal a bad bargain for the US when he began campaigning for presidential campaign and had vowed to pull out from the deal once he was elected US president. To be fair, the US Congress had not approved the deal, which meant its legal status was weaker than an agreement or communiqu�� in Americans' eyes. This fact was being used as an excuse by conservatives in both the Democratic and Republican parties to censure Iran at regular intervals, and by Trump to threaten to scrap the deal.