President Trump Did Not Withdraw From the 2015 Nuclear Deal With Iran to Spite Obama

Over the weekend, there was a new leaked diplomatic cable from ousted British ambassador to the United States Kim Darroch alleging that President Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA, to spite former President Obama.

According to the leaked cable, Ambassador Darroch claimed that President Trump “set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for ideological and personality reasons — it was Obama’s deal.”

Darroch also said in the cables that the vice president, the national security adviser and the secretary of state failed to “articulate why the president was determined to withdraw, beyond his campaign promises” and had no plan once the United States withdrew.

These claims by Ambassador Darroch are 100% false.  They ignore how unpopular the JCPOA was and how most Republican presidential canidates also planned to withdraw from the agreement if they won the election.  American support for the agreement in September 2015 — just before the US Congress voted on resolutions of disapproval on it — was only 21%.  A majority of the U.S. Congress voted against the agreement, including the top Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  The Senate’s top Democrat — Chuck Schumer — also voted against the agreement.

Many Americans also strongly objected that that the Obama administration went around the U.S. Constitution on the JCPOA by not submitting it for ratification by the Senate which requires a 2/3 vote in favor even though the Iranian Parliament was allowed to ratify the pact.  Instead, Obama officials turned the Constitution on its head with a convoluted disapproval vote which allowed the agreement to go forward even though majorities of both houses opposed it.  This was possible because under the disapproval vote procedure, since the Senate vote was less than 60 votes against, Senate Democrats were able to filibuster the disapproval resolution.

Ambassador Darroch, like many members of the foreign policy elite, is still angry that President Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to withdraw from the JCPOA.  These elitists only have themselves to blame for this because they foisted a bad agreement on the United States against the wishes of the American people and the intent of the U.S. Constitution.  This had nothing to do with “diplomatic vandalism” or President Trump spiting President Obama.