RNA - Dankof, who is also a broadcaster and pastor in San Antonio, Texas, made the remarks in an interview while commenting on a statement by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who has said that President Donald Trump may re-impose “very strong” sanctions against Iran in May.
Testifying before a congressional subcommittee on Wednesday, Mnuchin said that Washington was ready to put “primary and secondary sanctions” back in place in case Trump refuses to certify the deal on May 12.
Under the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran agreed to limit some parts of its peaceful nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions.
Upon the deal’s announcement, the US Congress required then President Barack Obama and his successors to certify Iran’s compliance to the deal every three months.
Dankof said that “the latest move by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is yet another indication that the Trump administration is completely under the thumb of the Israeli lobby. I think the appointment of John Bolton as the national security adviser to the president is just a latest evidence of this.”
“When you are looking at the nuclear treaty with Iran, the P5+1 agreement, the JCPOA agreement, or you are looking at the latest action of the Trump administration in Syria, it is quite obvious that the Trump administration with bipartisan support -- from both parties -- wants to destroy this agreement with Iran,” he added.
“It’s clear to me that the Trump administration is committed to Israel’s policy of forcefully having a regime change in Iran and risking a wider war in order to do it,” he stated.
“So in this particular case the Trump administration -- I’m going to guess -- which said is just pulling out of treaty, is going to make the conditions for Iran’s continuance in the treaty so intolerable that it can force the Iranians to withdraw from the treaty. They can then blame the Iranians what’s essentially and American Israeli effort to destroy the treaty. That’s what I think is going on here,” the analyst noted.
According to Press TV, last week, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said the United States will probably get out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on the Islamic republic.
She accused Iran of supporting terrorism and violating the terms of the 2015 historic nuclear agreement and went on to say that the Europeans are closing their eyes on this but added that the United States would not do that.
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