It's All Because of Obama

We know something today that we didn’t know just a few months ago: Iran’s bark is far worse than its bite. After years of speculation about its military might, we now have something close to a real-world test—and the results are in. Thanks to recent U.S. and Israeli military operations, Iran stands as a diminished force, exposed for what it truly is: a regime whose power lies not in its capacity to strike, but in its ability to project the illusion of strength.

But how much farther ahead are we, really?

Iran’s fearsome reputation has long been a subject of debate. The real issue was never whether it could strike, but whether anyone was willing to test the proposition. That test has now taken place. And what we’ve confirmed is something analysts have long suspected: Iran’s post-1980s war strategy has centered on two things—cultivating a network of proxy militias and developing a nuclear program that serves primarily as a bargaining chip.

The proxy strategy allowed Tehran to skirt international accountability while creating chaos abroad. The nuclear program gave the regime a shield—an insurance policy against regime change, and a powerful tool for international leverage. But despite all the breathless warnings over the years, there’s little evidence that Iran ever intended to actually fully develop much less use a nuclear weapon, against Israel or anyone else. If it had been hell-bent on doing so, it would never have agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015.

What the JCPOA revealed—though many missed it—was that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were negotiable. It was a revelation that should have reframed our understanding of Iran as a strategic, calculating actor rather than an irrational one. For all the deal’s flaws, it functioned as proof of concept: nuclear weapons aren’t primarily military tools anymore—they’re political instruments. And Iran was willing to trade that instrument for sanctions relief.

That brings us to the pivot point of the era we’re living through: Trump’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA in May 2018.

Let’s be honest—trump didn’t pull out of the deal because it was ineffective. He withdrew because Barack Obama had signed it. Trump committed himself early on to dismantling Obama’s legacy piece by piece—health care, climate agreements, and yes, foreign policy. The JCPOA was low-hanging fruit, and he took it down with gusto.

He was helped along by Bibi Netanyahu, a long-time opponent of the deal, and by a cadre of politically influential donors who had been lobbying against it for years. But trump needed very little convincing. In his world, if Obama built it, Trump had to bulldoze it.

The irony is rich. Today, trump is quietly hoping that Iran will return to negotiations—the very path the JCPOA made possible and that his administration shattered. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is dreading exactly that outcome, knowing any revived diplomacy could re-legitimize a deal he worked so hard to kill.

Trump now finds himself trapped by his own rhetoric. Any new agreement he might broker will inevitably be compared to the one he discarded. And he knows it. That’s likely why, when announcing that U.S. representatives would be meeting with Iranian officials next week, he quickly added, “We might not need a nuclear agreement.” It’s a preemptive hedge. Because negotiating a deal over something you claimed to have "obliterated" doesn’t quite add up.

Of course, it wouldn’t be trump without a twist of narcissism. His obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize—because Obama got one, of course—has become a guiding light for his foreign policy instincts. He floated the idea of winning it for brokering peace between India and Pakistan. Then between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Now, perhaps, he sees Israel and Iran as his long shot to glory.

But the real prize may have been within reach years ago—when Obama, along with a coalition of world powers, struck a deal that curbed Iran’s nuclear program without firing a single shot. It wasn’t perfect. But it was diplomacy. And it worked—until it didn’t, because it bore the wrong name.

And so here we are, again, circling back to where we started. Iran, diminished and exposed. Trump, desperate and entangled. And Obama, still living rent-free in the mind of a man who would undo the world just to outshine him.