As tensions with Iran escalate, former Obama administration officials and their media allies have been working overtime to push the narrative that the leading state sponsor of terrorism was somehow under control as a result of the Iran nuclear deal. In this alternate universe, the relevant timeline for Iranian aggression against the United States that precipitated the killing of Qassem Soleimani starts in May 2018, when President Trump pulled out of the deal and ignited a conflict between the two nations.

This self-serving and distorted account of history not only ignores decades of hostile behavior by one of the world’s leading rogue regimes but also years of aggressive and destabilizing actions by Iran over the course of the Obama presidency — before the nuclear deal was signed, during negotiations, and after it was implemented. Far from keeping Iran under control, Barack Obama’s deal further enabled Iran’s malicious behavior and made the entire Democratic Party and the news media complicit in downplaying its bad actions.