Trump keeps saying he is in this military skirmish with Iran to keep them from acquiring nuclear weapons. This rationale for the war was offered by some of the MAGA cult at the Republican convention in Texas last week. Because Trump repeats this claim so often, some people outside of Trump’s orbit might think that is a plausible reason. Well, it is not. Let me remind you that all the current conflict with Iran is a result of Trump’s own malicious hand.
In 2015, before Trump was elected president for the first time, President Obama negotiated an agreement with Iran and signed it in 2016. Trump cancelled this agreement early in his first term, claiming he could negotiate a better deal.
The Iran nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was a landmark accord reached in July 2015 by Iran, the U.S., China, Russia, Germany, France, and the U.K. Under its terms, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more extensive international inspections in exchange for billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions relief.
Proponents of…. the deal said that it would help prevent a revival of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and thereby reduce the prospects for conflict between Iran and its regional rivals, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, the deal has been in jeopardy since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it in 2018. In retaliation for the U.S. departure and for deadly attacks on prominent Iranians in 2020, including one by the United States, Iran resumed its nuclear activities.
And as he had promised during his first presidential campaign in 2016, Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in his second year in office. And he took up the racist anti-Obamacare fight. Trump argued that he could negotiate a better deal with Iran, implying through thinly veiled racism that the deal could not be that good, as it was developed under Obama, this black guy. Throughout his political career, Donald Trump has frequently characterized Barack Obama as a failed or weak president whose policies harmed the United States, which would be laughable if these assessments were not made by someone way over his head in governing and diplomacy.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal after ignoring the advice of America’s allies, who had urged him to stay in the agreement and build upon it. The leaders of France, Germany, and the U.K. noted their “regret and concern” at Trump’s decision, calling on Iran to maintain its commitments under the deal. This was a “whim” in action, this time influenced at least in part by Trump’s racist disdain for Obama.
President Biden restored the U. S. part of the JCPOA as soon as he could after becoming president in 2021. But as soon as Trump returned to office in 2025, he again withdrew the U.S. from the Agreement, presumably because he “could negotiate a better deal.”
Between 2015, when the agreement was implemented, and 2018, when Trump canceled the U.S. participation, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified Iran’s compliance with the deal on at least 10 occasions and maintained daily access to the country’s nuclear facilities. So, Trump’s necessity for the war was created by Trump.
The intensive, multi-year diplomatic effort to negotiate the JCPOA involved key political leaders and diplomats from each participating country. Secretary of State John Kerry and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman led America’s team. Additionally, America’s leading nuclear experts at the Department of Energy were involved throughout these negotiations.
The current negotiating team for the United States suggests amateur hour or something worse. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner lead it. Neither has significant diplomatic experience.
This is indeed a sorry state of affairs.
