Iran (MNN) — United States President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the US is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. Trump called the deal “defective at its core” and vowed to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran.
International reactions have been strong and varied. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson expressed their commitment to still try to keep the Iran nuclear deal afloat and even attempted to convince Trump not to pull out of the deal signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s decision to pull the US from the Iran nuclear deal. In a presentation on Monday, Netanyahu said Iran had lied about its nuclear ambitions and secretly still had plans to build atomic warheads.
Mike Ansari with Heart4Iran says the fallout of US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is still ongoing. However, a few effects are already projected to occur.
“The repercussions of what would come out of that would affect potentially the Iranian government in increasing and hiking the price of petroleum which would, at the end of the day, affect the amount of money each one of us in the West pays out of pocket for filling up our gas tanks,” explains Ansari.
“Beyond that, there is a lot of political repercussion. Geographically in the Middle East, in the neighboring countries, Iran has a lot of influence over Yemen still, in Syria fighting ISIS, in Lebanon, and in other areas. So Iran is definitely going to maintain a posture of strength and defy anything that would jeopardize its current position and status in this deal.”
Additionally, there will likely be negative effects within the country of Iran. Minorities and Christians in Iran are often used as scapegoats, accused of sabotaging Iranian interests and spying for the West.
Iranian family watching the Jesus Film. (Photo courtesy of Heart4Iran)
“We have seen repeatedly in the past that whenever international sanctions are put on Iran, the Iranian government usually turns up the heat on its minority — on the Baha’is, on the Christians, on the Jewish population — and they use them as a scapegoat to lash out on them. It becomes a specifically difficult time for the Christian population in Iran.”
Ansari says the combination of the broken nuclear deal and approaching Ramadan means hostilities towards Christians could increase. “As the Body of Christ, I would urge all of us to continue to keep the Christians and the minorities, the Baha’is and other minorities in Iran in prayer so that God’s glory will be seen.”
He also adds, “I would ask the Body of Christ, the other believers across the world to come together and pray for the Church to be rebuilt in that region. It was a Church that was once very powerful and had a lot of influence. So let us pray that God would restore His Church as He is doing to the fullness of His glory.”
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(Header photo courtesy of David Stanley via Flickr)
