People repeat themselves saying "JCPOA was highly flawed, but it was better than nothing", as if JCPOA would have prevented Iran from getting nuclear weapons. It would not - it only delayed Iran getting nuclear weapons, and so by that line of thinking, it only delayed the onset of war.

Delaying the onset of war is not worthless, but it is not the same as arguing that war could have been avoided, which is what people who roll out that claim are really trying to argue. It's only true in a universe where Iran would have collapsed from within before the expiration of the sunset clause, and that clearly was not going to happen.

▲

bryanlarsen 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> as if JCPOA would have prevented Iran from getting nuclear weapons

"highly flawed" implies that it's not very good at its primary goal

> it only delayed Iran getting nuclear weapons

That sounds better than no delay

	▲	bitcurious 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> That sounds better than no delay That depends on what Iran does in the meantime, does it not? If Iran effectively turned their missile program into a true deterrent then negotiated delay is worse, because it would remove the ability to stunt the development through military means. Which is very much the argument being made for the “why now” of this war.