Photo: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi visits Iran’s nuclear achievements exhibition, in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2025. Iran has reportedly enough enriched uranium to make nine nuclear bombs if enriched further. (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Why another narrow nuclear deal would repeat Obama’s worst mistake
By Ya Libnan , Op.Ed
The United States is once again allowing Iran to dictate the agenda, the venue, and the limits of negotiations that affect global security. That is not diplomacy. It is strategic surrender.
Instead of Washington setting the terms, Tehran has boxed talks into a single, narrow issue—nuclear restraints—while demanding the immediate lifting of sanctions the moment a deal is signed. Even worse, the United States appears willing to accept these conditions. If so, the outcome is already predictable: another weak agreement that Iran will exploit, violate, and ultimately outlast only one American presidency.
Iran’s nuclear program cannot be separated from its behavior. Any deal that ignores Tehran’s human rights atrocities, ballistic-missile expansion, and systematic arming of militant proxies is a fraud. Iran does not negotiate in good faith; it negotiates in bad faith backed by coercion, deception, and delay. Every previous agreement proves this.
Iran cannot be trusted with enriched uranium—period. Its record of concealment, cheating, and obstruction leaves no room for ambiguity. The claim that Iran can simply dilute its enriched uranium for civilian energy use is a transparent fiction designed to preserve breakout capability. No responsible nation would accept such an arrangement.
If Iran truly wants peaceful nuclear power, the solution is simple and non-negotiable: surrender all enriched uranium to international custody and purchase nuclear fuel under strict global supervision. Anything else is a pathway to a bomb.
The real danger is not just Iran—it is American political naïveté. A deal designed to survive only one administration is not a deal; it is a ticking time bomb. Just as President Trump dismantled the 2015 agreement, a future president will almost certainly cancel any new deal that repeats the same fatal flaws. That cycle guarantees escalation, not stability.
The Obama-era agreement delivered a final, damning lesson Washington refuses to learn. Iran was flooded with cash, and the result was immediate and devastating: Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias were armed, funded, and unleashed. The region burned while Tehran smiled and claimed compliance.
A deal that enriches Iran’s regime while ignoring its conduct is not diplomacy—it is appeasement.
If the United States signs another narrow agreement, it will not be because better options were unavailable. It will be because Washington lacked the courage to demand them. America must set the agenda, expand the scope, enforce irreversible safeguards, and refuse to trade long-term security for short-term political convenience.
Anything less will guarantee that Iran wins again—at America’s expense and the region’s blood.
