Scrapping the Iran nuclear deal will harm America

LAST summer John Bolton was a hawk with clipped wings. The former ambassador to the UN and cheerleader for the Iraq invasion was grumbling that White House staff were thwarting his attempts to give President Donald Trump his plan for scrapping the Iran nuclear deal brokered by Barack Obama in 2015. Not any more. On April 9th Mr Bolton, whose walrus moustache and verbal bluster mask a skilled and ruthless bureaucratic infighter, becomes Mr Trump’s national security adviser. As a result, that deal to roll back Iran’s nuclear-weapons programme seems on its last legs. That is bad news for the Middle East, for America’s allies and for America itself.Mr Trump has long scorned the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the “worst ever”. Yet every 120 days he must sign a waiver for sanctions to remain unenforced—and hence for America to continue to honour the agreement. Mr Trump half-disowned the Iran pact in January, but the sobersides in uniforms and suits running his foreign policy at the time persuaded him to give its European parties, Britain, France and Germany, one last chance to fix it.