When the New York Times first reported that Trump had decided to violate and withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, they reported that talks broke down because Trump wanted to eliminate the sunset clause that would have allowed Iran to produce more nuclear fuel after the year 2030, but new information suggests he never really cared about that.
The Associated Press reports that our allies who signed the deal alongside us had agreed to eliminate the sunset clause, but Trump walked away anyway.
They conceded that some expectation could be put into place in perpetuity that Iran should never get closer than one year from building a bomb. All that was left was to figure out creative language for how that constraint would be phrased that everyone could support.
Trump walked away from the deal anyway. Announcing the U.S. was out, he called the 2015 pact his predecessor brokered “defective at its core” and said the U.S. would immediately re-impose sanctions lifted under the deal. [...]
Behind the scenes, though, the Trump administration had been actively preparing for a pullout since January, when Trump declared that he would withdraw if an “add-on” deal wasn’t reached. To many U.S. officials, it was as clear then as now that the president would not be swayed to accept even a toughened-up version of the accord.
This was never about policy because, if it was, the deal would still be intact today.
There is no Plan B. There won't be another deal. The best case scenario for the world is for Russia, Iran, and the European Union to stand by the current deal without us and tell Trump to get fucked.
Bloomberg previously reported that the European Union intends to pass legislation to protect their businesses from sanctions after Trump reimposes them. That would represent a very significant economic and diplomatic break between the United States and Europe.
Several members of the Trump regime including National Security Adviser John Bolton have said they intend to draft a new deal of some description with "our allies," but I don't know if even they believe that.
Our "allies" would be justified in imposing their own sanctions on us.