"You'd think we would've learned that lesson by now": Obama says US can't "bomb" way to Iran deal
The former president worried that a new deal with Iran will be far worse than the one that was in place until 2018
Barack Obama is deeply skeptical that the United States and Iran will be able to work out a deal better than the one that was in place before President Donald Trump‘s first term.
The Obama administration reached a deal with Iran in 2015. That deal saw Iran agreeing to limit its nuclear program, in exchange for an easing of sanctions put in place by the United States and the UN. President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.
Obama discussed the withdrawal and subsequent war with Iran in an interview with ABC‘s Robin Roberts on Sunday.
“It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place,” he said.
https://www.salon.com/2026/06/14/youd-think-we-wouldve-learned-that-lesson-by-now-obama-says-us-cant-bomb-way-to-iran-deal/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
A deal isn't the goal here. Positive press coverage is the goal.
The goal was twofold imo
Drive up oil prices so the venezuela oil was a juicy investment instead of a total waste of time - he can't look a fool to his benefactors.
Strike israel's enemies. Basically the same reason because their pac funds a lot of politics and buys a lot of votes.
Ending the war with a surrender was probably considered better than a 41st or 42nd announcement of a deal being struck.
They knew the press coverage was going to be a big L, but fox will spin it as a great success and the "fake news radical liberal media" will be ignored by his base because they said something about trans or protecting the kids.
Threefold,
Dominate the news with anything that is not epstein files.
Fourfold: announce “peace” deal, stocks go up, sell and make money. “Peace” deal falls through, stocks go down, buy low. Rinse and repeat.
Remember this as well. Epstein was known for over 30 years. Revolution is necessary to get what you really want.
This. One must remember Trump's main objective is rigging the economy to improve his investments
Fair
Maybe give you the first but the US was taken completely by surprise and railroaded into striking Iran. The utter lack of plan and resources to pull personnel out after the strikes makes that obvious.
The deal is a necessity for trying to avoid looking even worse. There's no 'looking good' anymore, it's about trying to make everyone hopefully forget by midterms.
Correct, but it's coming from the wrong guy. Libya, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen would like a word.
I mean really did this fucker forget he was a wartime president?
Note that he didn't say that violent offenses didn't work broadly or were immoral, just that it was never going to work with Iran specifically, which from what I've seen has been a long-held perspective even among the same folks that were eager to bomb away on Iraq. Even people that thought they could do this with Afghanistan were more skeptical about trying the same stuff with Iran. Even as those same people would have loved it to be the case they could do this to Iran, they had to admit it wouldn't work.
So even for more warmongering sentiment, this Iran situation was still a dumb idea.
Right. But because Obama did a deal, Trump has to undo it and do a different one.
Obama’s presidency fundamentally broke Trump. His entire purpose for being President is to try and erase the Obama presidency. The grift is just a side quest.
Obama kept trying. So he would know how useless it is.
How many bombs did Obama drop on Iran?
None because he wasn't that fucking stupid. He just dropped them on everyone in the region who couldn't fight back.
Say what you want about Obama (and I'll probably agree with a lot of it) but he's been the only US President with a sane policy towards Iran since Carter.
I'm not crazy about Obama but at least his deal was coherent
As the record holder for drone strike approvals, Obama would know a lot about trying to bomb his way to a deal!
But seriously, fuck the American imperialist project
Obama has not done the most drone strikes you jackass
Damn. I guess all these articles are fake news then.
But if you’re getting in the weeds, sure, maybe Obama doesn’t top the list for “drone strikes while in office”, maybe it’s the list of “presidentially approved drone strikes while in office”. But you didn’t bother to list any sources with your rebuttal, so I’m not sure if you even had any actual evidence to backup your claim, jackass.
What sucks is - Cuba is next. They realized their mistake - can't do much about strong country that has support, but can still choke off smaller country in our own hemisphere.
I think trump will attack cuba and this time there will be no ussr that can help. Before midterms, they want some victory to offset a defeat from Iran.
I think that's a tough one.
Clearly, Venezuela likely served as an "I told you so" for some hawkish folks that felt we could throw our military weight around and we should try other long thorny issues that folks said we shouldn't try military solutions.
Iran conversely proved the conventional wisdom right.
I never thought I'd live in a world where Obama was the peak president during my lifetime
Well, not with that attitude.
Uh-huh, and what about the bombs you threw, Obama?
He didn't throw any bombs at Iran
He did bomb the guys they sent to help Syria fight ISIS and Yemen defend itself from Saudi Arabia.
Extrajudicial drone killed a wedding party to neutralize a US citizen? Or am I mixing two events?
Yes, and the events you're combining jad nothing to do with Iran
My larger point is Obama ain't innocent.
That's not at all the point of this article or conversation. It's about the deal with Iran and how bombing them isn't going to be effective. It has nothing to do with anyone's moral compass, just the Iran deal and bombing Iran.
Had Obama said bombing the middle east is bad and Trump is bad for doing that, then you'd have a great point, but he didn't, so you don't.
Because he was the bestest ever!
He bombed Pakistan. Your point?
It doesn't matter if there's a difference on where you bombed, bombing one place and then calling someone else out for bombing is stupid
My point is he didn't bomb Iran
Read the comment.
It doesn't matter he didn't bomb Iran, he still bombed. Same shit.
It actually isn't the same shit at all. Do you think geopolitically that bombing Russia and bombing Somalia are the same thing? You don't think the outcomes there would be different?
Ethically, it is absolutely the same.
Geopolitically, which is the topic, it's completely different
Gotta love the hypocrisy of people not wanting to speak ill of Obama. For the record, I want to see Trump and GOP in jail, rotting away for the rest of their lives. However, let's call a spade a spade. Obama had as much of an influence in what has become the middle east as much as the next guy. Stop putting him on a pedestal and pretending the US has been innocent this entire time. They ain't. Ain't gonna be until the swamp is drained in full.
Exactly.
Obama didn’t bomb iran, he never attacked them. The US only attacked dictators who were killing their people under Obama
Are you not aware that the "dictators who were killing their people" live was being used on Iran during the protests? Does this mean you're okay with bombing Iran now?