Countries that continue to deal with Iran could face American sanctions, the Trump administration said today, days after it announced its decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal.

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The countries that continue to deal with Iran could face sanctions. Europeans are going to face the effect of US sanctions already really because much of what they'd like to sell to Iran involves US technology for which the licenses will not be available, US National Security Advisor John Bolton said.

This was part of the flaw of the deal to entice Europe and the United States into economic relations with Iran that eventually would have worked against really holding Iran accountable for violations of the deal. It's reminiscent of the saying attributed to Vladimir Lenin that the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we'll hang them," he said.

That's what's wrong with this deal. Why would any business? Why would the shareholders of any business want to do business with the world's central banker of international terrorism? he asked.

Acknowledging that the Europeans are disappointed that the US got out of the deal.

He said perhaps they feel that way in large part because representatives of the Obama administration were working in the past several weeks to try and prevent the deal from abrogating, which may have given the Europeans the false impression that they could prevail.

We are gonna work with all of the Europeans. President Trump has discussed with President Macron in France with Chancellor Merkel in Germany with Prime Minister May in England to move beyond the deal. We all share the common objective of making sure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, are worried about their terribly destabilising and threatening military behaviour across the region and their ballistic missile program. We are going to work to stop that, he said.

Responding to a question, Bolton said that the leadership of the previous Obama administration lied to the American people.

Because in resolution 2231, the fifth preambular paragraph where it says, we welcome Iran's reaffirming that they don't have any intention to have a nuclear weapons program, it was a lie at the time. The administration then knew it was a lie and accepted anyway, he said.

If you look at the advances that Iran has made under cover of this agreement, it's conventional military and terrorists advances in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen since 2015, Iran was really on the march. They were shifting the balance of power in the Middle East until President Trump got out of this deal, he said adding that the policy of the administration is to make sure that Iran never gets close to a deliverable nuclear weapon.

First Published:May 14, 2018 5:38 AM IST