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As Trump weighs Iran strikes, his abandonment of the JCPOA looks even worse
If the White House is right and the Iranian nuclear threat is worse, maybe it’s worth talking about how Tehran became more dangerous?
As Trump weighs Iran strikes, his abandonment of the JCPOA looks even worse.
— hateGOP (@hategop.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T19:47:54.746Z
If the White House is right and the Iranian nuclear threat is worse, maybe it’s worth talking about how Tehran became more dangerous?
www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...
Link to tweet
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-iran-strikes-jcpoa-nuclear-deal-rcna214131
Leavitt responded that it’s a “fact” that Iran is very close to having a nuclear weapon, adding that the U.S. government “maintains this fact that Iran has never been closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3lry3dmeqjw2g
.....As regular readers know, the international agreement with Iran did exactly what it set out to do: The policy dramatically curtailed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and established a rigorous system of monitoring and verification. Once the policy took effect, each of the parties agreed that the participants were holding up their end of the bargain, and Iran’s nuclear program was, at the time, on indefinite hold.
And then Trump took office and abandoned the policy for reasons he never explained.
In broad strokes, Obama set out to use economic sanctions to get Iran to the international negotiating table. That worked and a breakthrough agreement eventually followed. Trump came to believe he could duplicate the strategy by abandoning the policy, restoring the old sanctions and adding new ones......
In fact, once the U.S. was no longer a part of the agreement, the West lost verification access to Tehran’s program. It was at that point that Iran, rather than begging the White House for attention, almost immediately became more dangerous by starting up advanced centrifuges and ending its commitment to limit enrichment of uranium.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:lib7o5clkyzbwpxnlcbpbzuc/post/3lrulqjaloc2n
.....How Trump arrived at his decision adds insult to injury. One of my favorite stories about the Iran deal came a few months into Trump’s term in the White House, when the president held a lengthy meeting with top members of his team: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, White House National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford. Each of the officials reportedly told Trump the same thing: It was in the United States’ interest to preserve the JCPOA policy.
The Republican expected his team to tell him how to get out of the international agreement, not how to stick with it. When his own foreign policy and national security advisers told him the policy was working, Trump reportedly “had a bit of a meltdown.”
Soon after, he abandoned the JCPOA anyway — not because it was failing, but because Trump was indifferent to its success.
All Trump had to do was nothing. He could’ve simply left the policy alone and allowed it to keep working. He instead did the opposite. The Republican was convinced his strategy would work — he even boasted at one point during his term that he was prepared to be Iran’s “best friend” — but the entire gambit backfired.
Seven years later, Trump and his team want to talk about how dangerous Iran is. What they don’t want to talk about is how much the president’s own misjudgment made the Iranian threat worse.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3lry3dmeqjw2g
Link to tweet
.....As regular readers know, the international agreement with Iran did exactly what it set out to do: The policy dramatically curtailed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and established a rigorous system of monitoring and verification. Once the policy took effect, each of the parties agreed that the participants were holding up their end of the bargain, and Iran’s nuclear program was, at the time, on indefinite hold.
And then Trump took office and abandoned the policy for reasons he never explained.
In broad strokes, Obama set out to use economic sanctions to get Iran to the international negotiating table. That worked and a breakthrough agreement eventually followed. Trump came to believe he could duplicate the strategy by abandoning the policy, restoring the old sanctions and adding new ones......
In fact, once the U.S. was no longer a part of the agreement, the West lost verification access to Tehran’s program. It was at that point that Iran, rather than begging the White House for attention, almost immediately became more dangerous by starting up advanced centrifuges and ending its commitment to limit enrichment of uranium.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:lib7o5clkyzbwpxnlcbpbzuc/post/3lrulqjaloc2n
Link to tweet
.....How Trump arrived at his decision adds insult to injury. One of my favorite stories about the Iran deal came a few months into Trump’s term in the White House, when the president held a lengthy meeting with top members of his team: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, White House National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford. Each of the officials reportedly told Trump the same thing: It was in the United States’ interest to preserve the JCPOA policy.
The Republican expected his team to tell him how to get out of the international agreement, not how to stick with it. When his own foreign policy and national security advisers told him the policy was working, Trump reportedly “had a bit of a meltdown.”
Soon after, he abandoned the JCPOA anyway — not because it was failing, but because Trump was indifferent to its success.
All Trump had to do was nothing. He could’ve simply left the policy alone and allowed it to keep working. He instead did the opposite. The Republican was convinced his strategy would work — he even boasted at one point during his term that he was prepared to be Iran’s “best friend” — but the entire gambit backfired.
Seven years later, Trump and his team want to talk about how dangerous Iran is. What they don’t want to talk about is how much the president’s own misjudgment made the Iranian threat worse.
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