Administration

President Obama on Iran: ‘We pulled it off without firing a missile’

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by Sophie Brams - 05/13/26 10:46 PM ET

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by Sophie Brams - 05/13/26 10:46 PM ET

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Former President Obama is making the case for diplomacy with Iran amid the ongoing conflict, pointing to the 2015 nuclear deal as evidence that Tehran’s program can be constrained without further military intervention.

“We went about trying to negotiate a diplomatic agreement that would get the enriched uranium out of Iran, that would assure they could not get to a nuclear weapon without us knowing about it…and that there were mechanisms in place to enforce it and verify it,” Obama told host of “The Late Show” Stephen Colbert during an interview last month.

“And we pulled it off without firing a missile,” he added.

Obama was referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement negotiated during his second term designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief from the U.S., Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany.

The former president recalled that his administration weighed using military force against Tehran during that period but opted to use it as a “last resort” after diplomatic talks.

“My basic theory was that Iran couldn’t become a nuclear state, that the regime itself was murderous, oftentimes towards its own people, engaged in state-sponsored terrorism, was a threat to the United States and allies of ours, so the idea that they would have nuclear weapons would be extraordinarily dangerous,” he said. “What I also believed was that the regime was not entirely irrational, that they had a survival instinct, and that when you carry out the military force, innocent people die.”

The discussions were long and complex, but in the end, Iran agreed to major restrictions on its nuclear program and to open its facilities to international inspectors.

The deal required Iran to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium by close to 98 percent, but they were allowed to maintain some low-grade substance for civilian energy purposes.

“There’s no dispute that it worked, and we didn’t, we didn’t have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the Strait of Hormuz,” Obama argued.

The JCPOA remained in effect from January 2016 until President Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the agreement during his first term in 2018, describing it at the time as “a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”

European partners attempted to keep the deal going after the U.S. withdrawal, but Tehran defied and accelerated its uranium enrichment the following year, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.

The JCPOA capped the level of uranium enrichment for Iran below 4 percent, but Iran now has a stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent — far closer to 90 percent “weapons-grade” level.

Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal took particular issue with its sunset provisions, insisting that the agreement would merely delay the regime’s nuclear ambitions.

Trump has long held that Tehran cannot be allowed to possess any highly-enriched uranium — a sticking point in the current negotiations, as Iranian officials have so far refused to accept that as a condition for ending the two-month conflict.

Still, the president has insisted that he can reach a better deal than the Obama administration.

“If a Deal happens under ‘TRUMP,’ it will guarantee Peace, Security, and Safety, not only for Israel and the Middle East, but for Europe, America, and everywhere else,” Trump wrote in an April post on Truth Social. “It will be something that the entire World will be proud of, instead of the years of Embarrassment and Humiliation that we have been forced to suffer due to incompetent and cowardly leadership!”

The U.S. and Iran have exchanged fire in recent days, raising tensions and threatening to upend an already fragile ceasefire, as Pakistani intermediaries continue shuttling peace proposals between the two sides.

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