WASHINGTON — Five days before President Trump pulled out of what he called the “horrible” Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told diplomats from Britain, France and Germany that he believed the pact could still be saved. If Mr. Pompeo could win a few more days for negotiations, he told the Europeans in a conference call on May 4, there was a chance — however small — that the two sides could bridge a gap over the agreement’s “sunset provisions,” under which restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program expire in anywhere from seven to 13 years. By May 7, when Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, made the rounds in Washington, that hope had vanished. Mr. Pompeo told him that not only had Mr. Trump decided to pull out of the deal brokered by his predecessor, Barack Obama, but he was also going to reimpose the harshest set of sanctions on Iran that he could. The frantic final days before Mr. Trump’s announcement demonstrate that the Iran deal remained a complicated, divisive issue inside the White House, even after the president restocked his war cabinet with more hawkish figures like Mr. Pompeo and John R. Bolton, the new national security adviser.

Source: New York Times May 12, 2018 14:57 UTC