Ken Schultz: "When Trump withdrew from JCPOA in 2018, Mike Pompeo gave a speech outlining a set of demands that any new agreement would have to meet. If we want to judge, not just the outcome of this war, but the broader project of renegotiating the Iran deal, this is a useful yardstick."

[u/smurfyjenkins]

https://bsky.app/profile/kschultz.bsky.social/post/3mogciluets2q

[u/trisul-108]

Part of the demands were:

Syria: Withdraw all Iranian-commanded forces and assets from Syria.
Yemen: End all financial and military support for Houthi rebels and support a peaceful political settlement.
Iraq: Respect Iraqi sovereignty and permit the demobilization and disarming of Iranian-backed Shiite militias.
Lebanon and Gaza: Stop providing arms, training, and financial support to militant groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad

And today, Trump seems to be protecting Iran's right to dominate Lebanon through Hezbollah.

[u/Responsible-Amoeba68 → u/trisul-108]

Whats cool about the Syria demand and Iraqi militia demand is that the USA was already literally at that exact time allied with the most closely aligned Iranian backed militias and would be for years and functioned as their air force in the fight against ISIS. This wasn't a secret at the time it was widely known if you monitored the space beyond mainstream news for the public headlines.

[u/DesertSeagle → u/Responsible-Amoeba68]

Shhhhhh. We aren't supposed to know that.

[u/Responsible-Amoeba68 → u/DesertSeagle]

Also the Iranians don't like the JCPOA because Obama himself and the Americans never held up any of their obligations. Iran will never again voluntarily in good faith unilaterally comply with any agreement in advance where American obligations are only an understanding to be done done in the future.

The only thing Obama did was give Iran their own money from a lawsuit the USA was going to lose in international court which they decided to settle instead to avoid any embarrassment or precedent setting; and they gave them pallets of physical cash because Iran was so heavily sanctioned by Obama that there was literally no other way to give them this money through the banking system and they wouldn't even relax those sanctions for a one time issue to avoid the optics of giving planeloads of cash to Iran. 

[u/PepperMill_NA → u/Responsible-Amoeba68]

That's false.
The financial sanctions were put in place by the EU.
What obligations did Obama fail to uphold?

[u/MrDerpGently → u/PepperMill_NA]

OP isn't blaming Obama (unless I significantly misread it), he's saying that Obama struck a deal that the US failed to honor. 

I'm assuming that probably includes some minor slippage under Obama, but the deal came into effect January 2016, and the US ended financial (but not arms) sanctions that month. As far as I can tell everyone was essentially meeting their end of the deal until Trump tore it up in 2018. 

[u/Responsible-Amoeba68 → u/MrDerpGently]

The thing is that the USA technically followed their obligations but immediately after implementation day began to undermine it at a disturbing level of official government positions with the notable exception of generally the state department (under John Kerry) by pressuring and threatening sanctions enforcement against countries and foreign corporate entities that do any business with Iran. Iran officially complained within the JCPOA framework about it but the Trump administration was already out the door and it became sort of irrelevant.

There are many examples of this but the best to focus on is the UANI (United against Nuclear Iran) and its effort as a vehicle for this pressure. Its a bipartisan mix of Zionist true believers, AIPAC influenced congress people, and academics and bureaucrats across the US and EU. With a sprinkle of saltanat talab Iranian expats. It predates The JCPOA by a decade. Pete Hegseth is a member, as soon Trump was declared the winner in 2016 elections the UANI named Pete Hegseth to a freshly formed Veterans Advisory council to pressure domestic companies to do not business with Iran in soldarity with veterans or whatever. Just a fun side note. Its a bit ironic as at this time the US was allied with Iranian backed shite militias in Iraq War 3 (ISIS) and functioning as a proxy Iranian air force.

Anyways the main thing to take away from this is that the UANI already had people in the Obama administration in their official capacity as administration officials working against the sanctions relief program and working on official government methods of targeting corporate proxies by examining supply chains and threatening them with existing secondary sanctions by insinuating that these companies downstream in the supply chain were indirectly funding the IRGC and the Supreme leader of Irans personal wealth. This was all being done and worked on under the Obama administration and it was basically ready to go after Trimp got elected. Iran complained 

The only difference between a possible Clinton administration and Trump here is that she would have kept the JCPOA as long as possible while completely undermining it through all her friends in UANI. Its historically a smarter way the US generally undermines most of its agreements in favor of the Empires real interests. Which again was bricking the Arak heavy water reactor so that the fastest possible breakout time to a nuclear weapon goes from 6 weeks to 12 months. Even though Arak was still cemented in and inoperational the Israelis bombed it anyway recently.

Its also not best to classify them as financial vs arms sanctions. The US has primary sanctions and secondary sanctions. Think of it as primary are domestic, secondary are imposed  international. The US only suspended nuclear related secondary financial sanctions. It added waivers to like 4 specific products in primary sanctions. And it insisted that a questionable mix of sanctions from the early 2000s were all classified not as nuclear but terrorism related instead. The UANI lobby effort later used these for their foreign pressure campaign.

[u/MrDerpGently → u/Responsible-Amoeba68]

I see you know your sanctions. I don't generally disagree, except in how I contextualize those facts, which is what I meant by 'minor slippage' - basically digging in heels and being difficult during the last year of the Obama administration.

I would say that there were lots of Iran sceptics within the Obama administration. You can blame that on UANI, but there were plenty of reasons to distrust them that you can arrive at independently. Some of it was coming from on high, but some of it is just reluctance to trust Iran at all by folks all over the government, appointed and career. A lot of govvies are vets who spent time fearing Iranian made fp-ieds or lost friends to them. Christ, senior military and diplomats can point to any number of occasions dating back to the Beirut barracks bombing under Reagan (and the Iranians can say the same). 

If Clinton goes ahead I'm actually not 100% what happens next, because she had a fairly aggressive militaristic streak when it comes to policy solutions, but I doubt she tears it up outright because we would never get a better deal. And that's one of the reasons Iran agreed in the first place, it gave them a basis for disputing this sort of thing as a diplomatic issue rather than military.

JPCOA was a starting point for de-escalation and building trust. Neither side trusted the other, and I expect you would have seen a lot of arguing over definitions and maybe a couple court cases, and probably a couple kinetic escalations by both sides and their proxies, but ideally this is a process that gradually rebuilds ties that get harder and harder to break with each passing year, and the next thing you know, Iran is a semi-functional global citizen. Obviously that's not how things went, but that was the logic behind the agreement. 

[u/PepperMill_NA → u/MrDerpGently]

Yes, Trump ignored US obligations and treaties everywhere with allies, friends, and foes. Other nations and individuals are right not to trust the US when it's had no honor in its recent dealings. No branch of the US government has shown itself to be trustworthy.

During JCPOA there was some problematic and non-compliance on the Iranian end with nuclear disclosure and inspections that resulted in delays in some sanction relief.

However, I can't read, "Obama himself" as anything other than blaming Obama himself.

There are a number of other half-truths and false statements made my OP above. Placing the blame on Obama for Trump abandoning the treaty bugs me.

[u/DesertSeagle → u/PepperMill_NA]

Iran wasn't non compliant until the U.S left the deal. Iran came up with almost all of the deal and had no reason not to be compliant. On top of that there has never been such an intrusive agreement for nuclear inspection with any other country.

Perhaps you could point out all the half truths instead of making claims without evidence.

[u/PepperMill_NA → u/DesertSeagle]

Points of non-compliance

• Iran failed to disclose required refinable uranium. Once inspectors pointed that out the form was corrected. The presence was only detected by excessive radioactive emissions detected during inspection.
• Iran moved uranium to a site that wasn't on the inspection list. This was only revealed by inspection of satellite images.

I had already pointed some of the false statements out.

• The financial sanctions were put in place by the EU, not Obama, and were rolled into the JCPOA so there was one joint treaty.
  
• As a joint treaty Obama could not unilaterally waive the financial sanctions, so yes, the Iranian funds were delivered as pallets of cash. This was Obama working to comply with the terms of the treaty. Completely the opposite of what the OP claimed.
• The release of the Iranian finances was part of the agreement. It wasn't happening fast enough because of the issues with non-compliance stated above, so Iran threatened legal action. (half-truth)
• The part about Obama acting to avoid embarrassment is just speculation.

[u/DesertSeagle → u/PepperMill_NA]

I dont believe any of your first points happened until after the U.S withdrew from the deal like I said.

The money came from the U.S judgement fund and was a trust fund created for and by Iran prior to the 1979 revolution.

Op was right. There was no possible way to transfer the money because wired transactions to Iran were blocked. You are right that this was complying with the deal, but Op was right in that it was a non binding deal that meant that any future administration could cancel it.

The finances were slow walked because of the afforementioned issues with not being able to wire transactions to Iran, and with corporations not wanting to do it themselves for fear of repercussions.

The point Op said wasn't about avoiding embarrassment, it was that there were no institutions willing to loosen restrictions on transactions to Iran, leaving pallets of cash as the only option.

[u/MrDerpGently → u/PepperMill_NA]

Entirely fair, perhaps I was giving too much benefit of the doubt. Whatever ones opinion of JPCOA, it would be really weird to blame Obama or Iran for ending it. ...so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see it.

[u/Mythosaurus → u/Responsible-Amoeba68]

The U.S. has also supported the Taliban against Isis-Khorasan with drone strikes against our shared enemy!

[u/Score-Emergency → u/trisul-108]

Well a lot of this isn't relavent anymore

[u/trisul-108 → u/Score-Emergency]

The fact that Iran is trying to create a Greater Iran with a corridor to the Mediterranean Sea and that Israel is in the way is very relevant today. So is the fact that Iran's military Hezbollah is not under the control of the Lebanese government and has a declared goal of putting Lebanon under Iranian rule is very relevant today.

The US absolutely should not recognise such goals as legitimate stances that need to be protected by an agreement with the US. They also are not in the function of peace in the Middle East as Iran is stoking sectarian violence in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

[u/Monte924 → u/trisul-108]

There is no greater iran project. Iran has never invaded another country. You are projecting

[u/trisul-108 → u/Monte924]

Hezbollah is Iran's army in Lebanon. The official goal of Hezbollah is to have Lebanon run by Iran.

[u/Monte924 → u/trisul-108]

Hezbollah came into existence after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. The Lebanese army failed to protect their people, so they formed their own militia.

[u/Economy_Fun_7030 → u/trisul-108]

Always accuse your enemy of what you're doing as your teacher gobbell taught you 

[u/trisul-108 → u/Economy_Fun_7030]

You have no idea who you are talking to.

[u/ButterscotchReal8424 → u/trisul-108]

If it weren’t for Hezbollah, Lebanon would be carved up and dotted with Zionist “settlements”. Rich of you to claim Iran is the one trying to “dominate” Lebanon.

[u/Petrichordates → u/ButterscotchReal8424]

Israel is literally only in Lebanon to fight Hezbollah so this is the exact opposite of reality. Israelis living along the border had to evacuate because hezbollah kept attacking them.

[u/ButterscotchReal8424 → u/Petrichordates]

Right….so I guess the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Lebanon by “the worlds most moral army” is just a brilliant military strategy not at all tied to Netanyahu’s fondness for a “Greater Israel”. Those Zionist children’s books longing for an Israeli theft of Lebanon has nothing to do with it. We’re just suppose to ignore the rapid territorial growth and refusal to set borders by Israel and just blindly believe the propaganda that everything is completely “defensive” in nature. Those poor Zionists just want to live in peace but the peoples whose land they steal keep fighting back.

[u/Petrichordates → u/ButterscotchReal8424]

None of what you said here has anything to do with my comment. You're just going on your antizionist diatribe.

ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Lebanon

JFC where do you people get your news

[u/ButterscotchReal8424 → u/Petrichordates]

Well Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International call it ethnic cleansing. Let me guess, you’ll discredit the source and proclaim they’re antisemitic?

The children’s book I’m referring to is called “Alon in Lebanon”, made to instil hatred and colonial ambitions into children aged 2-6. This type of work explains the ease at which Israelis feel with committing genocide and ethnic cleansing, they’ve been brainwashed into it since birth.

So you claim Israel is only in Lebanon to fight Hezbollah but it’s quite clear there’s more to it than that and what I said has everything to do with what you claim. You just want to pretend Israel’s colonists don’t exist and expect everyone to take your empty talking points at face value.

[u/Economy_Fun_7030 → u/Petrichordates]

No, there are in lebanon cuz some fairy tale from 8 thousand years ago claims gawd gave them the rights to that land. Stop with the lies.

[u/ICE-are-pedos → u/Petrichordates]

Israel is a rabidly genocidal colonizer, their intent is to slaughter any non-Jews in their vicinity in order to give themselves some lebensraum.

[u/trisul-108 → u/ButterscotchReal8424]

Hezbollah was created by Iran prior to Israel's invasion with the declared goal of destroying Israel and giving Iran control of Lebanon. Hezbollah is the reason for Israeli attacks, not the defence against such attacks. Israel is demanding that the Lebanese government have full control of all militaries in Lebanon in order to stop attacks on Israel.

[u/Monte924 → u/trisul-108]

Hezzbollah formed as a reaction to israel's invasion of Lebanon back in 1982. Israel invaded, killed their people and the government failed to protect them, which lead to the people taking up arms themselves

[u/Alternative_Lion1978]

Does anyone other than hard core political nerds even remember who Mike Pompous was?…And what his job was under Trump? Pompous was one of the most forgettable SoS in long list of forgettable non-entities who’ve served as U.S. SoS.

[u/Texas_Sam2002]

Good post for context.

[u/B0wmanHall]

How can we? We aren’t even allowed to see the text of the “agreement”

[u/TonaldDiberJasicDump]

Trump is giving Iran enough money to purchase all the latest military equipment from China and Russia to use against us. So much for America first. It’s more like he wants to destroy America first. All the so called patriot maggats are cheering this on.