[YZF]

You might be right on the regime change being fantasy but those things are not predictable and we don't know the details.

Where you're definitely wrong is on the "diplomatic agreement that worked". Iran continued to enrich violating the agreement, the agreement was time bound and not indefinite (and would have already expired anyways), and it enabled them to sell oil and raise a lot of money to fuel their wars, missile programs, nuclear programs and other ambitions.

[throwaway534634]

> Where you're definitely wrong is on the "diplomatic agreement that worked". Iran continued to enrich violating the agreement...

No, actually it is you who is wrong. Iran absolutely complied with the JCPOA. It is after US withdrew from the agreement that they pursued enrichment further.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Iran absolutely complied with the JCPOA

Yup. "The U.S. certified in April 2017 and in July 2017 that Iran was complying with the deal. On 13 October 2017, President Trump announced that he would not make the certification required under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, accusing Iran of violating the spirit of the deal..." [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal#Trump_admini...

[YZF]

Wrong. That is not the question. It came to light later that Iran hid sites, activities and materials. The 2017 certification is not relevant. They were still violating it either in letter or in spirit, they had no intent of stopping the pursuit of nuclear weapons, and at the most charitable interpretation (and no way the Iranian regime deserves that) the agreement was time bound and would have expired already.

Why was Iran under sanctions in the first place? Sponsor of terrorism. Oppression of its own people. Messing with Yemen, Syria, Lebanon (and the list goes on). Only in Syria they helped Assad murder 100's of thousands of Syrians. The Yemen civil war. The murder and abuse of their own citizens.

Iran had an easy way of not getting sanctioned. We didn't need the JCPOA. What we needed is Iran to cease the activities for which it was getting sanctioned.

We had a "diplomatic solution for Iran" is total nonsense. Obama messed this up just like he totally messed up the entire middle east. Iran trained and supplied Hamas which led to Oct 7th. Iran trained and supplied Hezbollah. Iran developed and built their ballistic missile program to attack all their neighbors. With what money/resources? With the money Obama gave them in for cheating on this agreement. If you have western interests in mind than the Iranians are laughing at you for being a fool.

[YZF]

Since my other reply was flagged, and I'm past the edit window, and I learnt a little more about the nuance:

- Technically Iran was considered to be meeting the requirements of the JCPOA during the 2016-2018 period in reports issued at the time.

- Iran failed to declare all its sites and programs before entering the JCPOA. This is known now, after the fact.

- Technically some argue that because Iran participated in meetings and filed papers they met the PMD requirements which were the preliminary requirement for the JCPOA to take effect. The nuance here is whether they technically fulfilled the requirements despite lying and hiding and then "only" violated the NPT or whether they violated the PMD.

- That Iran hid sites, material and equipment came into light after the Mossad stole Iran's nuclear archive. This is fact and was confirmed by IAEA inspections despite Iran's attempts to prevent that.

- When the IAEA asked to inspect those sites Iran engaged in a cover up operation and delayed access. After the sites were inspected there was evidence of nuclear material made by human activities.

- That material discovered by IAEA was not farther enriched which the supporters of the agreement claim is evidence that Iran didn't enrich more material. In reality Iran lied and hid facilities and so despite the samples taken by the IAEA not finding evidence of more enrichment the basic fact is that Iran acted in bad faith and so we just don't know. Maybe they only hid sites, equipment, and nuclear material but did not pursue further enrichment during this period. Maybe they did in other sites.

- Officially Iran was never found to be in violation of the JCPOA.

- The JCPOA was set to expire in October 18, 2025 after which there would have been no restriction on Iran anyways. That's another part of the argument that this was a bad agreement.

[tyre]

I appreciate that you dug further into it.

While it’s difficult to say to what extent they were going beyond there agreement, it’s clear that they were. I’m not aware of any evidence that it was to the level of, “they’re continuing to make quick progress towards a bomb.” Which is what happened when the US decided to reneg.

There were another seven years to negotiate what’s next and real progress made from both sides trusting each other. That’s the type of momentum needed for further diplomacy (e.g. counteracting more bellicose members of the IRGC.) Instead, we got the opposite. And for what?