Quitting JCPOA costly for US: CNN analyst

'Pompeo’s most immediate challenge will not be rebuilding the department and restoring morale; it will be dealing with an acute foreign policy crisis that is largely of the president’s own making — the Iran nuclear deal,' wrote Fareed Zakaria in Washington Post.

'Before Trump even sits down with Kim at the negotiating table to discuss a nuclear deal, the administration will have to decide how to handle the preexisting deal with Tehran,' Zakaria said.

He also said that Europe seems 'unwilling to endorse more than cosmetic changes, and Iran has flatly refused to renegotiate', which means by May 12 the US 'is set to pull out of the agreement, which could lead Iran to do the same and restart its nuclear program'.

Saying that the event will be coincident with the time, the US will be trying to convince North Korea of the benefits of signing an agreement similar to the JCPOA, Zakaria asked, 'Why would Kim sign a deal while he watches the United States renege on the last one it signed?'

'The tragedy here is that this is an entirely self-inflicted crisis. There was already enough instability in the world that the administration did not need to create more. Pompeo should recognize that his job as secretary of state will be to solve problems, not produce them, and he should preserve the Iran accord and spend his time on North Korea.'

Zakaria wrote whatever Pompeo had said about the Iran deal months ago is now 'ancient history'. Pomepeo should simply declare that under the circumstances, 'the deal is worth preserving'.

Referring to the cost of the tearing the deal, Zakaria commented, 'There are significant costs to America’s credibility and reputation if Washington keeps reversing its positions on core foreign policy issues. Yet there are greater costs to stubbornly persisting with the wrong policy.'

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