BREAKING. The Iran Nuclear Deal May Have Just Melted Down

President Trump was facing a May 15 deadline to either withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal or grant Iran a waiver for its chronic violations of basically everything. While it was probably safe to say that Defense and the professional diplomats at State wanted to stay in the deal, with Mike Pompeo heading State and John Bolton as national security adviser it was increasingly unlikely. Indeed, when Emmanuel Macron visited Trump last week one of his primary missions was to try to convince Trump to stay in the deal. Trump’s comments at their joint press conference didn’t seem like Macron had succeeded.

Now a couple of things have happened. First, from Israel.

Today, at 8 PM (Jerusalem Time) #Netanyahu will publish "dramatic information" that the #Mossad has obtained about Iran's breach of #JCPOA (nuclear agreement). If true- a significant proof of Netanyahu's claims against the agreement and to the desire of #Tramp to withdraw from it

— Ronen Bergman (@ronenbergman) April 30, 2018

#BREAKING: “It is a huge cache of documents captured by Israel, proving Iran has deceived the world with respect to its nuclear program.” https://t.co/jSHFsP6efC

— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) April 30, 2018

That is 1 p.m. Eastern.

The second thing is from Iran.

#BREAKING: Abbas Araghchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, says "The Iran nuclear deal is no longer sustainable for Iran in its present form, without regard to a US exit." (@dpa quoting ISNA news agency)

— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) April 30, 2018

Sr. Nuclear negotiator Abbas @araghchi : Continuation of d current state of #JCPOA either #US withdraws from it or is intolerable, #Iran is prepared for all possible scenarios.

— Fereshteh Sadeghi فرشته صادقی (@fresh_sadegh) April 30, 2018

Here Iran is signaling that it has gotten all the benefits it will ever get from the deal and it intends to withdraw.

This is a fitting end to this monstrous deal. On the one hand, Iran will be revealed as deliberately violating the deal (raise your hand if you are surprised). On the other, Iran is basically saying, “we’ve got what we want. Later.” Again, no huge surprise.