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.
The former president, who led a large troop surge in Afghanistan and massively expanded the U.S. drone warfare program, said that the US can’t “bomb [its] way” to foreign policy solutions. Though he admitted that a show of force may “sometimes seem appealing,” he said there’s no substitute for taking the time to talk out a deal.
“You’d think we would’ve learned that lesson by now, but it seems like every so often we have to learn that lesson again,” he said.
Trump has been deeply critical of the former agreement between Iran and the US. In his first term, he called it a “horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”
“It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will,” he said.
Trump has promised to work out a better deal in a ceasefire agreement with Iran. That ceasefire has been promised as days away for weeks, though no deal has been made public.
