Everything You've Been Told About Whether the Iran Deal is Working is Probably Wrong
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson certified that Iran has been in compliance with the Obama Administration-brokered nuclear deal, while warning of the regime’s continued sponsorship of terrorism abroad. Many pundits were quick to cast this as a huge backtrack by President Trump on the Iran deal, which he purportedly had promised to tear up once elected. Vox dubbed Tillerson’s letter a “major policy reversal” for the president. Speaking to ThinkProgress, pro-deal lobbyist Trita Parsi called it “the mother of all flip-flops” for Trump, given “how strongly he argued he would either renegotiate or scuttle the deal.”
But in fact, throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump distinguished himself on a crowded Republican stage with his refusal to promise to rip up the deal. As the Huffington Post reported back on August 16, 2015: