On August 6th, Trump announced that the US will resume sanctions on Iran that were previously lifted by the famous 2015 nuclear deal between the two nations.

The deal was supposed to prevent the Iranian theocracy from obtaining potentially dangerous nuclear weapons, but Trump has called the deal "horrible" and "one-sided" and has finally withdrawn the US from the agreement. While the Iran deal had its flaws, it was also a bona fide international accord that was reached within the highest levels of government during the Obama administration.

Destroying the deal now not only allows Iran to resume its nuclear program, it also debilitates further US diplomatic and foreign policy efforts because the trust that other countries can put into America is now severely strained.

Iranian nukes can get back on track

Since 1976 (even before Iran's Islamic Revolution), the Iranian government has expressed an interest in acquiring radioactive materials (like uranium) and working to enrich them for energy, or even military, purposes. By 2002, Iran already had multiple energy-grade nuclear facilities, such as the Natanz enrichment complex.

When talks leading to the 2015 Iran deal came around, Iran was supposedly only a few months away from enriching uranium to a military-grade level, one capable of generating nuclear weapons. Following Trump's reneging on the deal's JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) Iran could theoretically resume its nuclear program. This could mean an atomic bomb (or worse) by the time the year 2018 ends. This is very unsettling given the fact that Iran has harbored very anti-Western beliefs for decades now, and may use any nuclear weapons to blackmail Western nations like the US.

The US is no longer trustworthy

Despite Trump's very vocal misgivings about the Iran deal, his own intelligence sources report that Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement. Therefore, by reneging on a deal that Iran is still following ( a deal which was also negotiated by other world powers like the United Kingdom and China), Trump has accomplished the very thing that previous, more competent presidents had feared.

He has essentially declared, on an international scale, that the word of the United States of America is only worth the term length of the president that said it and is, by extension, less valuable than the promises of an undemocratic Islamic theocracy. Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif even said, regarding America, "how can we trust them?" For a nation that has proudly helped negotiate some of the greatest international accords in history, from the Treaty of Paris (1783) to the great Treaty of Versailles, this is utterly disgraceful.

Even though the other nations that helped negotiate the nuclear deal with Iran have still pledged to continue its terms, the departure of the US clearly signifies a great danger. Iran now has the potential to attack Western allies like Israel with nuclear weapons and United States government, now seen as untrustworthy, can do little to ameliorate the situation.