Our president said that questions about the wisdom of the deal fail to consider the really important detail that he Himself could be affected by Iran going nuclear:
“I would consider it a failure on my part, a fundamental failure of my presidency, if on my watch, or as a consequence of work that I had done, Israel was rendered more vulnerable,” he said.
Well, if Israel getting nuked might make President Obama feel like he failed (somehow!), that's really the important take-away from this whole initiative with Iran.
But much like the notion that attacking Iran's nuclear infrastructure would cause Iranian opponents of the regime to rally around the flag (rather than descend into prolonged bouts of "why do they hate us?" self-loathing) while doing nothing will keep most Iranians think better of us and less of their own government, why is our president's self image important?
It would not be a consolation to a target of an Iranian nuclear weapon if Iranians in general become really, really sad that their government nuked somebody.
And it will be no consolation to a target of an Iranian nuclear weapon if Barack Obama in his retirement years mopes about believing it was a "fundamental failure of his presidency."
Besides, I don't buy the idea that suddenly our president will discover the notion of taking responsibility for his actions rather than blaming somebody else.
Good God, our president is so awful that comparisons to President Carter are in the context of wishing President Obama had Carter's ability to learn from his errors (in only one term of office, I'll add).
*Like I've always said about him, until I boycotted that idiot revealed by the Ukraine Crisis as a monster, I'm not saying you couldn't drown in a pool of Friedman's wisdom, but you would have to be drunk and face down to do so.
Needless to say, I'm not going to link to Friedman's actual interview. He disgusts me.
UPDATE: Nothing is the president's fault. The update could get the Global Warming tag, I suppose. But that's not really the point.
