Political Memes

The children*

It's a wonderful case of "non-politician sucks at politics".

The stability of international relations depends on the faith the other party will keep their word. Why spend months or even years negotiating an agreement if the next head of state will cancel it in two years?

The Iran Deal wasn't great. Iran in particular gained a lot of leeway in its regional activities (much to Israel's dismay), which mattered less to global powers than the concern of atomic weaponry. On the flipside, that gave Iran good reasons to uphold the deal: The lifting of sanctions allowed it to rebuild its economy while still allowing for the pursuit of its (local) strategic interests.

So yes, the JCPOA worked for the purpose of stopping the nuclear program, because violating its terms, even covertly, would have risked discovery. That would have killed a favourable deal, along with trashing chances for a future, equally favourable one. Iran's transparency towards the IAEA wasn't goodwill, it was strategic communication to the global powers: "See, we're not a problem to you anymore! You can leave us be!"

Obviously, they continued to be a problem for the rest of the region. To Israel in particular they were a national security concern (and a threat to Zionist ambitions to boot - genocidal fanaticism goes both ways here), but that's a whole different topic. Point is:

The deal did what it set out to do, but the Pedo In Chief has about as much clue of diplomacy as a toddler that throws a tantrum if they don't get what they want (except both his "what they want" and his tantrums are a lot more sinister).

Oh that's just a side hustle for him. The most important things was to talk about something else than that he and his friends [1] fucked kids.

[1] since DOJ isn't going even after a single person, I'm guessing all people involved must be his friends, or he was running it together with Epstein.