In the interest of securing any deal rather than the right deal – politics over principle – the president and the diplomats he sent to negotiate seem to have forgotten or perhaps never learned why Iran must not get a nuclear weapon.
On July 14, 2015, Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) concluded a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) concerning the future of Iran’s nuclear program.
Vigorously promoting this Iran Deal as a viable way to block and limit Iran pathways to a bomb. While recognizing Israel’s intense trepidation to the deal, he forcefully claims that war remains the only alternative to accepting this agreement, or to any changes to the agreement.
Congressional rejection of the nuclear deal wouldn’t be pretty, but a messy domestic political battle is a far cry from the president’s warnings of potential war with Iran.
Under the deal between Iran and five world powers, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars of sanctions relief. Israel called the deal too lenient. On May 8, 2018, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA, calling it one of the “worst and most one-sided” agreements in U.S. history. Israel’s objectives in attacking Iran in June 2025 focused on the same central features Israel argued a decade earlier were not sufficiently addressed in the JCPOA.
The agreement will not prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapons capability. It will not require the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear enrichment infrastructure. It will however reduce that infrastructure for the next 10 to 15 years.
The lifting of sanctions on Iran will allow Teheran to increase its support for terrorist groups across the region, and bolster Iran’s political and military power.
Yossi Kuperwasser, “The Struggle over the Iranian Nuclear Programme, ” Fathom, Winter/2015
Antony Blinken pleads with Congress not to expand sanctions on Iran amid negotiations to contain Tehran’s nuclear program.
House testimony from a Treasury Department official during the 2015 Iran nuclear negotiations shows that U.S. priorities and nonmilitary approaches toward Iran remain the same in 2026.
Netanyahu praises the Obama administration for its support of Israel’s security, then roundly criticizes it for negotiating a deal with Iran that will not roll back its nuclear breakout time and for not demanding that before sanctions are lifted that Iran stop its support of terrorism and threats to wipe Israel off the map.
Biden’s is seized by Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and its continued support of terrorist organizations, like Hezbollah and Hamas; they endanger Israel and the world. Golda Meir told him. “Israel’s secret weapon; it has no place to go.”
Netanyahu devotes the bulk of his speech to the Iranian threat, its desire to acquire a nuclear weapon and its sponsorship of terrorism internationally. He speaks proudly of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh says in Tehran, “We shall never recognize the usurper Zionism government” and will “continue the jihadist movement until the liberation of Jerusalem.”
Jimmy Carter, “The U.S.-Iran Relationship, the Shah’s Downfall, Khomeyni’s Rise to Power, and the Hostage Crisis,” an Emory class presentation, Atlanta, March 24, 1985, recorded and transcribed with permission.
The CIA report details Iran’s aggressive foreign policy of promoting Islam as a radical platform for governance, noting also the new regime’s vigorous anti-U.S. outlook. Viewing Iran exclusively as an asset in the Cold War and not comprehending the potential power of political Islam developing with Iran proved to be one of the greatest oversights in U.S. Middle East foreign policy in the last 100 years.
A U.S. House Intelligence subcommittee issued a scathing report on the failures of the intelligence community and policymakers as the Shah’s regime was collapsing in Iran.
Having made human rights a central pillar of his foreign policy, Carter nonetheless seemingly ignored the abuses the Shah of Iran imposed upon his own people. Carter’s unctuous praise for the Shah at this state dinner angered Iranians in general, the clerical regime that replaced the Shah in 1979, resulting in negative consequences for Carter as he went into the 1980 presidential election.
