Trump Attacks Obama Over Iran Deal
President Donald Trump took another public swipe at former President Barack Obama while defending his own effort to end the U.S. war in Iran, calling America’s first Black president a “stupid son of a b—h” during remarks tied to the G7 Summit in France.
Speaking during a bilateral press conference with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Trump said his still-unreleased memorandum of understanding with Iran is “not final” and warned that the U.S. could resume military action if Iran does not agree to his terms.
“If I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head,” Trump said.
The 80-year-old president then claimed that no one else could have negotiated the deal before turning his criticism toward Obama and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear agreement reached under the Obama administration.
“Nobody could have made this deal,” Trump said.
Referring to a $1.7 billion cash transfer to Iran during Obama’s presidency, Trump claimed, “They tried to bribe their way out of it. And you know what the Iranians did? They laughed at Obama, and they said, ‘He’s a stupid son of a b—h.’”
Obama’s Iran Deal Returns To The Center Of The Debate
Trump’s remarks were a continuation of years of attacks against Obama’s Iran policy. The cash transfer Trump referenced was not a bribe, but the return of Iranian funds connected to a decades-old dispute, delivered in foreign cash because sanctions blocked Iran from accessing the standard global banking system.
Trump has repeatedly blamed Obama’s deal for Iran’s nuclear threat since launching strikes in Iran in February. However, critics of Trump’s foreign policy argue that Trump’s own 2018 decision to withdraw the United States from the JCPOA helped revive the very nuclear concerns he now says he is trying to contain.
Victor LaGroon, a U.S. Army veteran, former intelligence analyst and former Biden administration official, told theGrio that Obama’s agreement had already established a diplomatic framework Trump later abandoned.
“President Obama was able to work with allies to put together one of the most comprehensive agreements to address the concerns and the needs [in Iran]….they were making some gains,” LaGroon said. “They worked with Iran to come up with several key components, which, by the way, Donald Trump got rid of, and now is seeking to rebuild the same thing.”
Trump’s Proposed Iran MOU Faces Scrutiny
While Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran has not been fully released, administration officials have previewed parts of the proposal as the U.S. and Iran work toward a final agreement to end the months-long conflict.
The war has contributed to higher global gas prices and rising inflation, while costing Americans as much as $2 billion a day. Reported provisions of the agreement include ending the U.S. blockade on Iran’s exports and a reconstruction and economic development plan worth at least $300 billion.
One major point of concern is what appears to be missing: a finalized agreement on Iran’s nuclear production. Trump has repeatedly cited Iran’s nuclear threat as the central reason for the war, yet the reported MOU does not appear to settle that issue.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s 2024 opponent, recently argued that the U.S. would not be in the same position if she had been elected president.
“Whatever is being negotiated, this president is going to declare victory, and we’ll end up where we were after the JCPOA and call that a victory,” Harris said.
Obama Says Diplomacy Still Matters
Obama, who is preparing to unveil the Obama Center in Chicago, recently said he is “doubtful” that Trump’s Iran deal will be much different from the agreement his administration reached before the U.S. pulled out.
Obama said his deal worked “for a long stretch of time before we, the United States, pulled out of it.”
“I’m hopeful that bombing stops, and ordinary people are no longer suffering as a consequence of the war,” Obama said.
The former president also warned against believing military force alone can solve complex foreign policy crises.
“Then, in retrospect, it’s a reminder that on a lot of difficult foreign policy problems, the notion that we can just bully our way or bomb our way to solutions may sometimes seem appealing,” Obama said. “But the fact of the matter is, is that it requires taking the time to explore diplomacy and exhaust the possibilities of coming up with deals that don’t solve 100% of the problem, but solve 80, 90% of the problem, all avoiding the necessity of going to war.”
Obama added, “You’d think we would have learned that lesson by now, but it seems like every so often we have to relearn that lesson again.”
