A veteran foreign policy expert delivered a cutting verdict on Donald Trump's Iran diplomacy Monday, arguing that the president's relentless attacks on Barack Obama's nuclear deal are actually an admission that his own deal looks remarkably similar.
"He doth protest too much," said Richard Haass, the veteran diplomat and foreign policy analyst, responding to Trump's repeated Truth Social broadsides against the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. "The people that are going to note the similarities — neither that agreement nor this one will get Iran out of the nuclear business. It's going to place a ceiling on it."
Haass went further, suggesting the current situation is worse than it needed to be. The deal that Trump's own negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were offered in late February, he said, was "at least as good and arguably better than anything we're going to be able to negotiate now."
"Talk about an unnecessary war of choice," Haass said. "This is going to be high on the list."
The observation landed with particular force given Trump's weekend posts mocking the "rank amateurs" of the Obama administration who negotiated the original deal.
It was Morning Joe regular John Heilemann's comment that framed the moment most sharply. Heilemann, co-host Jonathan Lemire noted, is fond of saying that with Trump, "everything is confession or projection" — and Trump's Obama attacks, in this reading, are both simultaneously.
Haass said the final verdict on Trump's deal will depend on inspection mechanisms and implementation details. But on the core question of whether it represents a fundamental break from Obama's approach, he was unequivocal: it does not.
"There's actually much more in common than this president is ever going to be comfortable with," he told viewers.