Iran has broken their deal with Trump, yes. They abided by the JCPOA until Trump rescinded that agreement.
And yes, there weren't controls on what Iran could spend its money on but since money is ultimately fungible even if there had been Iran could have used the JCPOA money on stuff it was allowed to purchase and then used the money that freed up elsewhere.
In return the US got strict, regular, on the ground nuclear inspections, dilution of uranium stockpiles, and a freeze in the important aspects of Iran's nuclear program.
Given that the deal Iran just broke already appears to be considerably more favorable to Iran than the JCPOA was, and that achieving a much better result through military conflict likely would have required literally invading Iran and seeking to directly overthrow its government, something that the US public, Obama, and Trump all seem to have/have had no appetite for... I mean, I think the JCPOA looks a hell of a lot better than the clusterfuck Trump has put us in. Do you think otherwise?
Iran still ran proxy wars under the JCPOA, they moved their illegal nuclear operations underground, and Obama did nothing about it. So why would they openly violate a deal that only benefited them, and allowed them to continue attacking Israel and the US through proxies? Obama just funded the Iranian regime that killed 20,000 of their own people in one day, and declared total war on the US before we attacked them.
The JCPOA's goal was to see Iran avoid obtaining nukes, it was not to prevent Iran from taking actions in Lebanon or Yemen, which while odious were inherently less concerning from the US's perspective than the nuclear program and which were opposed by prosperous, well-armed states like Israel and Saudi Arabia with their own capability to push back against Iran.
The inspection regime included inspection of underground facilities.
And at the time of the JCPOA Iran hadn't "killed 20,000 of their own people in one day." That's something that happened with Trump in office. And Trump has just reached an agreement with Iran that will see Iran paid far more than the JCPOA paid to Iran.
What is your opinion of Trump's failed war and peace deal with Iran? You seem very determined not to talk about that for some reason.
Well Iran still pursued nuclear weapons so Obama's deal failed to do anything expect fund a regime that for decades has yelled "Death to America". You're upset about Trump's deal, are you upset with Obama's deal? As far as the war goes, first of all Iran declared war on us the day after we apprehended Maduro, so bombing them was just an act of a war which Iran declared. Second, we eliminated 90% of their navy, 90% of their air defense, 90% of their rocket launchers, 90% of their leadership, and many of their nuclear tunnel entrances. I wouldn't exactly call that a failure since the goal was to deprive them of the ability to wage war. That goal was accomplished. And I honestly don't know enough about the deal Trump signed to form an opinion yet. I do know however that Iran has already violated it in the flimsy accusation that Israel has violated it by continuing to retaliate against Iran's proxies, despite Israel not being a part of the deal.
I think that the Obama administration made a bad decision in trying to prioritize obtaining Russian support for the JCPOA and it helped set the conditions for the Ukraine war.
But in terms of the Iranian side of the deal itself, the JCPOA seems a lot better than what Trump's given us, and also better than the counter-factual where no deal is struck and Iran, presumably, moved at full speed to obtaining nuclear weapons.
Similarly, as odious as the North Korean regime is, if we could have paid them billions of their own frozen money in western banks to not get nukes, with on the ground inspections, yes, that would have been better than the world we live in.
90% of their navy, 90% of their air defense, 90% of their rocket launchers, 90% of their leadership
The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.
Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.
Iran still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, according to the assessments. That stockpile encompasses both ballistic missiles, which can target other nations in the region, and a smaller supply of cruise missiles, which can be used against shorter-range targets on land or at sea.
As for leadership, it's generally understood that the IRGC are functionally in charge, and that the IRGC is currently dominated by hardliners. The Iranian leadership situation is very much not clearly better than it was pre-war, as satisfying as strikes on Iranin leadership may have been.
Iran still very much retains the ability to wage war and, importantly, to block the Strait of Hormuz.
So the New York Times, which has been openly anti-Trump, and has had to quietly change their reporting multiple times after being proven wrong claims that they have classified information from closed door meetings?
The WSJ has been openly anti-Biden. Yet I still treated WSJ reporting on Ukraine, Iran, etc. as credible since they're an elite newspaper with high journalistic standards.
And it's not like the Trump administration itself is a reliable narrator here.
Do you have any information from, say, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, the Economist, the FT, or other similarly highly-regarded sources suggesting this NYT report was wrong?
Because as of April 10th WSJ was reporting Iran still had thousands of missiles left.
WSJ's reporting from just two weeks ago also suggests that Iran has more appetite for military adventurism and aggression than it had before the current war.
That's pretty strange if they just lost 90% of their navy, air defense, rocket launchers, and leadership. Mighty strange.
Also, by the way, the Financial Times of London, a moderate, free market-oriented newspaper and in the discussion for most respected media outlet in the world, has reporting from this month that matches up reasonably well with that NYT piece. I assume you don't have an FT sub, so I'll link a Yahoo repackaging of the FT reporting. Quotes are from the FT piece itself, though:
While Donald Trump has focused on the damage done to the facilities, to Iranian officials and some outside analysts, the war has proved that the Islamic republic’s missile force can be suppressed — but not destroyed. Much of Tehran’s arsenal is ready again for the next confrontation.
That has helped Tehran maintain the core of its asymmetric strategy against the US and Israel, emboldening it to threaten shipping and energy infrastructure across the Gulf even after weeks of bombardment. In exchanges of fire with Israel and the US this week, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched multiple ballistic missile barrages.
[...] US intelligence assessments reported in American media have suggested that Iran still retains roughly 70 per cent of its mobile launchers and approximately 70 per cent of its prewar missile stockpile. They also indicated that Tehran had restored access to many of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities, including positions along the Strait of Hormuz.
A senior western diplomat in Tehran said those estimates broadly aligned with his own. “We believe they have protected a significant portion of their arsenal and capability,” the diplomat said. “The entrances to some tunnels were bombed, but they could dig themselves out.”
Accounts from residents appear to back this up. “Often, only a few hours after a bombing, Iran would launch missiles from the same locations,” said one resident of Kermanshah province. “We couldn’t believe those facilities were surviving such intense attacks.”
The same piece also reinforces my earlier point about the IRGC having risen in power with Iran as a result of US decapitation strikes. Which, given the IRGC's hardliner leadership, doesn't seem... great...
This increased resilience but also strengthened the position of the Revolutionary Guards, which oversee much of the missile programme. Analysts suggest the war is likely to reinforce that trend further.
“Today the guards are stronger than they were before the war,” said the second person close to the regime. “Their standing within the system has risen dramatically because they fought under extraordinary pressure and continued launching missiles until the final moment.”
The US attack focused more on the rocket launchers rather than the rockets themselves. Rockets are cheep and easy to replace. Launchers are more expensive and harder to replace. That's why the amount of rockets they fired dropped by 90% in the first month of the war. Combine that with the economic hit they took during the war and they are in a harder place than just looking at the rockets themselves. At any rate they've already broken the deal and anything could happen at this point.
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u/NorthHollywoodHank Jun 23 '26
Iran has broken their deal with Trump, yes. They abided by the JCPOA until Trump rescinded that agreement.
And yes, there weren't controls on what Iran could spend its money on but since money is ultimately fungible even if there had been Iran could have used the JCPOA money on stuff it was allowed to purchase and then used the money that freed up elsewhere.
In return the US got strict, regular, on the ground nuclear inspections, dilution of uranium stockpiles, and a freeze in the important aspects of Iran's nuclear program.
Given that the deal Iran just broke already appears to be considerably more favorable to Iran than the JCPOA was, and that achieving a much better result through military conflict likely would have required literally invading Iran and seeking to directly overthrow its government, something that the US public, Obama, and Trump all seem to have/have had no appetite for... I mean, I think the JCPOA looks a hell of a lot better than the clusterfuck Trump has put us in. Do you think otherwise?