A Further Thought

It should also be noted that even as Trumpsters denounce Obama's Iran deal as appeasement and a hopeless sellout that must be renounced they are benefiting from it. 

At the time the deal was entered, Iran had an estimated breakout time to make a nuclear weapon of three months.  That does not mean they were automatically going to have nuclear weapons in three months if the deal had not been entered.  The Iranians had been at three months' breakout time for a long time.  It meant that any time they decided to quit dithering and actually build a nuclear bomb, they had the capacity to do it in three months, without necessarily attracting attention or being caught.

The nuclear deal required the Iranians to shut down nearly three-quarters of their centrifuges, to close their plutonium reprocessing plant, to ship over 90% of their uranium stockpile out of the country, to limit uranium enrichment to 3.75%, well below weapons grade, and to submit to intrusive inspections to ensure that all these terms were kept.  In return, they got sanctions relief.  There was much questioning at the time whether it would be possible to restore the sanctions if the Iranians broke the agreement.

Well, we appear to have the answer now.  Donald Trump has, indeed, restored sanctions and made them harsher than ever by threatening secondary sanctions against anyone who trades with Iran.  So obviously it was possible to restore the sanctions.  But the Iranians have kept to their terms of the agreement.  Why?

I think there can be little doubt as to why.  The agreement was carefully set up to ensure that Iran would not benefit from breaking the agreement.  To do so would mean kicking out inspectors.  It would mean building new centrifuges, or a new plutonium processing plant.  These things would attract immediate attention and cause alarm.  They would unmistakably signal to the international community that Iran was, indeed, pursuing nuclear weapons.  But such actions would be futile.  Iran's nuclear stock has been so depleted that it would take a year to build enough highly enriched to build nuclear weapons.  That would be more than enough time for Iran's enemies to start a war and, regardless of how it went for other countries, it would be a disaster for Iran. 

In other words, if the Trump Administration had imposed such harsh sanctions in the absence of the nuclear deal, Iran would probably have responded by building a nuclear bomb.  Thanks to the agreement, that avenue has been cut off. 

And naturally no Iran hawk ever acknowledges as much.