The Trump Administration on Wednesday is planning to sanction seven targets, including two Iranian defense officials, for illegal development of ballistic missiles, while at the same time honoring the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal with Iran and allowing foreign companies to do business with the Islamic there, US media reported.
During his presidential election campaign, Candidate Donald Trump vowed to “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” But on Wednesday, according to a statement from the State Department, “the United States continues to waive sanctions as required to continue implementing US sanctions-lifting commitments in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.”
To remind you, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is the title of dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran designed and signed by President Obama.
Iran, meanwhile, has been too busy to react, as it often does, to the seemingly contradictory announcements from Washington, seeing as Iranians are getting ready to cast their votes in the presidential elections on Friday, May 19. President Hassan Rouhani, who is running for a second term, told thousands of his reportedly enthusiastic followers on Wednesday: “On Friday people will go to polling stations to choose between deceitfulness and righteousness. We will choose the one who shoulders responsibility.”
Trump’s continued waivers of the sanctions are crucial to a Rouhani victory, since the Iranian President has built his reputation on the deal with the West. Rouhani is facing Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line conservative candidate who says the deal has failed to deliver the economic lift Rouhani had promised.