Could a Republican president undo an Iran deal?

Experts on the region and nuclear pacts say unraveling any deal once it goes into force will be fraught with diplomatic, financial and security risks that will make it all but impossible for a Republican president to just scrap it right off the bat. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hinted as much in an op-ed on the conservative web site Townhall.com, though unlike Walker, he did not come out and say he’d rip an agreement on Day One. “Undoing the damage done by a fundamentally flawed nuclear deal will not be easy,” wrote Bush. But he insisted doing so is “essential for the security of the United States.” It’s more likely, however, that moves by Tehran—not Washington, D.C.—will either propel the nuclear deal forward or put it in jeopardy…

“If we get an agreement that’s actually successfully implemented for a year and a half [under Obama], I don’t think any Republican president would cut up a deal,” says Ilan Goldenberg, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, a D.C. think tank. That, Goldenberg notes, would shatter the international consensus reached among the group known as the P5+1, which includes permanent United Nations Security Council members the U.S., France, the United Kingdom, Russia and China, as well as Germany. It would also roil a region already in flames and up the prospects for Iranian reprisals. And it could harm international energy markets, which are eager to get their hands on Iran’s significant oil reserves, if and when Western sanctions against the country are lifted under the prospective deal.

“I don’t think Iran is going to walk away from this quickly,” says Goldenberg, previously a senior Middle East policy adviser at the State Department and Pentagon. “I think they’ll implement the agreement,” at least in the early stages. That would likely force the next administration to hold up its side of the bargain, as well, at least initially. “I can see a Republican administration coming in and holding their nose and implementing it,” Goldenberg says. “But not vigorously implementing it.”