Former President Barack Obama was proud of his 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Citing the snapback provisions that the president falsely claimed “America can trigger … on our own,” Obama called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action “the strongest nonproliferation agreement ever negotiated.”

On this, too, he was wrong. Because the JCPOA fell short of requiring Iranian ratification of the Additional Protocol that strengthened the original Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the JCPOA was actually weaker than the nuclear inspections regime agreed to by 133 other countries. This was why Obama was never able to get a simple majority of senators to support the agreement, let alone the two-thirds necessary to ratify it as a treaty. Perhaps there was something to the logic of the snapback. However, when Iran prevents a strategy from succeeding, it makes sense to revert to the status quo ante.