Paula DeSutter

Cleaning house of the Obama – McMaster – Tillerson holdovers at State and the NSC isn’t enough. President Trump's national security team needs, not just a house cleaning, but a complete staff renewal that will reinvigorate it with seasoned professionals who share President Trump’s national security goals and will implement them, instead of undermining them.

President Trump’s step-by-step approach to trying to repair the follies of Obama’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran looks good on paper. However, it fails because to succeed it relies upon two feckless partners: the U.S. Congress and our European allies.

The inevitable result of continuing to falsely certify that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear weapons deal, and allowing their continued nuclear weapons and missile development cooperation, is an anti-American world dominated by two nuclear-armed rogue states; North Korea and Iran.

Our take is that the “decertify, but stay in strategy” is a scam engineered by National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and his Obama holdovers on the National Security Council staff to rope-a-dope Trump into leaving the Obamabomb agreement in place until a President who shares the Obama worldview can be elected and inaugurated.

The next date President Trump must certify Iran is in compliance with Obama's nuclear weapons deal is October 15. Decertifying the agreement, but staying in it is, in our view, rank political cowardice.

President Trump must not bow to pressure to falsely certify that Iran is in compliance with the Obama nuclear weapons deal. It is time to withdraw from the Obamabomb deal completely and prepare every available option to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Forty-five conservative national security experts, including CHQ Editor George Rasley, many of whom held senior positions in the nuclear weapons, arms control, nonproliferation and intelligence fields, sent a letter to President Trump endorsing a comprehensive plan, drafted by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, to withdraw the United States from the Obama - Iran nuclear weapons deal.

It can never be forgotten that there is a direct nexus between the North Korean nuclear weapons and missile programs and the Iranian nuclear weapons and missile programs. If President Trump doesn't back up his speech with action and falsely certifies Iran is in compliance with Obama's nuclear weapons deal it will embolden both North Korea and Iran.

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster's guidance to President Trump that he should falsely certify that Iran is in compliance with the Obama nuclear deal amounts to looking the other way on Iran’s violations and is little different than what Hillary Clinton would have done if she had won the 2016 election.

U.S. forces have opened fire on Iranian-backed forces in Syria at least three times since May. Three of the incidents took place at al-Tanf, a remote desert outpost near the point where the Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian borders meet.

Fred Fleitz and Ambassador Bolton argue it is folly to falsely certify that Iran is in compliance with its obligations under Obama's nuclear deal. It is time for President Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to take America out of Obama’s dangerous Iran nuclear deal.