Originally Posted by
Joe Bauers
Another interesting wrinkle in the Iran situation is the JCPOA. Trump tore that agreement up in 2018 after his administration certified that the Iranians were in compliance with it twice. That agreement left many problems to solve, but one thing is for sure: if that agreement had been left in place and the Iranians continued to follow it, they wouldn't have the stockpile of nuclear material they do now.
I was involved at the time JCOA was developed. The main problems with that deal, as implemented...
1) Our allies in the region did not consider it adequate for their security. The nuclear restrictions were temporary.
2) IR took their new-found economic windfall and applied it to more regional malign influence. So maybe less centrifuges, but more exported terror, insurgencies, missiles, proxy support, etc.
So behavior didn't change, it just morphed into other directions.
The deal was not a success for the US, other than maybe one guy's political legacy.