As events unfold unpredictably in the days ahead, with the U.S. enhancing its already stiff economic sanctions on Iran and giving analysts in the media and elsewhere ambiguous—and, let’s face it, weird—stories to speculate on and ponder which are lies and which are true, it’s important never to forget why this situation arose: Donald J. Trump. Or rather, his narcissism, hubris, ignorance and, of course, his outright hatred for anything the man who preceded him in the Oval Office accomplished.
Not that others haven’t been involved in shaping the tactics-without-a-strategy that now characterizes America’s chaotic and thoroughly counterproductive foreign policy. The problem for Trump now, as he tries to persuade everyone that he’s really against another shooting war in the Middle East, is that he adopted a policy that has led Iran to shoot down a U.S. drone and stand at the brink of putting a match to the nuclear agreement Trump has excoriated since his campaign for office began.
When Barack Obama left the presidency two and a half years ago, that multilateral nuclear accord between Iran and the five nations with the largest nuclear arsenals on the planet, plus Germany, had been doing what it was designed to do: steering Tehran’s leaders away from the kinds of nuclear development that could mean the building of uranium- or plutonium-based nuclear weapons if Iran should choose to do so. Getting there was a tough diplomatic dance all around and took six months of back-channel talk followed by 20 months of negotiations that seemed on the verge of collapse several times.
Nobody got everything they wanted. But each got something valuable. And the world got to breathe just a little bit easier than before.
Tehran had to plug its unfinished reactor at Arak (a heavy-water model that could produce plutonium); vastly reduce the amount of uranium concentrated into uranium hexafluoride that it could stockpile for fueling electricity-generating reactors; enrich uranium no farther than the 3.67% level useful as fuel; shut down the bulk of centrifuges used to achieve that concentration; limit or stop research and development in various areas; and allow repeated intensive inspections of its nuclear facilities, something no other nuclear power or would-be nuclear power has allowed. In return, the economic sanctions that had been imposed on Iran to nudge it toward the negotiating table would be gradually removed, frozen Iran assets released, and foreign investors not penalized for funding projects in the country.
When President Obama left office 18 months after the nuclear agreement was signed, the International Atomic Energy Agency, charged with responsibility for verifying through on-site inspections that Iran was complying with all those provisions, had stated in six quarterly reports that it was.
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