Obama: US May Be Worse Off After Iran War

Former President Obama is looking back at the Iran war and wondering what it was all for. In a Today interview, the former president said it "feels like we're back where we were before we started the war, except maybe a little bit worse off," despite having spent "billions and billions of dollars" and endured heavy military and human costs under President Trump's offensive. Obama tied that assessment to the new US-Iran memorandum of understanding, which aims for a longer-term agreement within 60 days but leaves key questions about Tehran's nuclear program unresolved.

Obama contrasted the MOU with the 2015 nuclear deal his administration brokered, noting Iran had agreed not to pursue a bomb before Trump exited the accord in 2018. "This administration, or a prior version of this administration, pulled out of it, which caused then Iran to develop more nuclear capacity," he said. He also used the opening of the Obama Presidential Center to reflect on political polarization and the fragility of democratic norms. For the full context of Obama's critique of Trump's Iran policy and his wider concerns about US democracy, watch the interview, which also included a video from a 24-year-old who wrote him when she was 7.