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Tom Nichols: Irans smart strategy

A few years in, the Obama administration took a major gamble. Seeing promise in less hostile relations with Iran, Obama decided to cut a deal with the mullahs. The nuclear deal of 2015 dismantled the regime of U.N. sanctions that had all but ruined the Iranian economy, in exchange for temporary limits on the key facilities of Irans nuclear weapons program and vague commitments never to develop nuclear weapons.

At the White House press conference where he unveiled the deal, Obama was asked whether it would allow the U.S. to more forcefully counter Iran's destabilizing actions in the region, quite aside from the nuclear question. In other words, would the deal buttress or undermine the containment of Iran? Among the points Obama made in response was this: It'll be a lot easier for us to check Iran's nefarious activities, to push back against the other areas where they operate contrary to our interests or our allies interests if they don't have the bomb.

There were some problems with this answer. Just a few years earlier, Obama had withdrawn U.S. forces from Iraq, in effect delivering Americas Iraqi allies to Iran on a silver platter. Iran would now have a land bridge all the way across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the Israeli border, and could hardly be expected not to take advantage it. Moreover, while it was no doubt true that dealing with Iran would be less difficult if it didnt have the bomb, the nuclear deal didnt exactly solve that problem, because it left Iran with all the basic elements of both a plutonium- and uranium-pathway serial production capability for nuclear warheads, which it could activate in a matter of months. Third, the deal itself was seen by many in Tehran as a surrender on Americas part, not entirely without justice, considering the U.S. had caved on the key demands in U.N. Security Council resolutions going back nearly a decade. For all these reasons, Obamas well-wishes notwithstanding, the baseline presumption had to be that Iran would feel emboldened, and it would be more, not less, difficult to deal with Irans other nefarious activities.

And so it proved. In Iraq, Iranian support for Shiite militias translated into influence over the Iraqi government itself. In Syria, Obama acquiesced to Russias and Irans entry into the civil war, making Assads eventual victory a foregone conclusion. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has all but completed its takeover of the state. The rise of ISIS brought the U.S. back to Iraq after a brief interregnum, but under a dispensation which left Iran free to continue its subjugation of Iraq. As such, the U.S. arguably served as Irans proxy air force in Irans fight against ISIS, further helping to cement Irans regional hegemony.

Though it was surely not his intention, Obamas strategy in many ways boiled down to appeasement. When President Trump came to office, Republicans saw an opportunity to undo the hated deal. They put relentless pressure on the president to withdraw from it, which he eventually did. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a return to withering sanctions, tied to maximalist demands that exceeded even those of the Bush administration.

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Obama Should Never Have Appeased Iran - The Atlantic