Article snippet: MORE is increasingly facing the possibility of a nuclear crisis with Iran, as Tehran takes its biggest step back from the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran’s decision to stop adhering to limits in the Obama-era nuclear agreement comes just days after Trump authorized a drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, posing a major test of the Trump administration’s gambit to withdraw from the international accord. While Iran hasn’t kicked out nuclear inspectors, and has even left open the possibility of coming back into compliance, experts say Sunday’s announcement by Tehran brings the deal closer to collapse than ever before. “For all practical purposes, they have pulled out of the agreement, or whatever was left of the agreement they hadn’t pulled out of,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The nuclear deal … had already been attenuated through a series of steps that Iran has taken. This is certainly the culminating step.” Iran has been gradually stepping back since last spring in a bid to pressure Trump to relax sanctions, or to encourage Europe to find a viable workaround to the harsh U.S. sanctions that were imposed after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. Three years earlier, the agreement between Iran and other world powers gave Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. But after the U.S. withdrawal, new sanctions have crippled Iran’s economy. Iran had set an early January deadline for its next step ... Link to the full article to read more