'We pulled it off without firing a missile': Former US President Barack Obama's BIG statement on Iran

Former President Barack Obama is once again defending diplomacy with Iran as tensions between Washington and Tehran continue to rise, pointing to the 2015 nuclear agreement as proof that Iran’s nuclear ambitions could be restrained without military intervention. Speaking during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Obama reflected on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the landmark nuclear accord negotiated during his administration. “We went about trying to negotiate a diplomatic agreement that would get the enriched uranium out of Iran, that would assure they could not get to a nuclear weapon without us knowing about it…and that there were mechanisms in place to enforce it and verify it,” Obama told host Stephen Colbert.

“And we pulled it off without firing a missile,” he added. The JCPOA was signed between Iran and world powers, including the US, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The agreement placed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Obama explained that while military action against Iran was considered, his administration viewed force as a final option. “My basic theory was that Iran couldn’t become a nuclear state, that the regime itself was murderous, oftentimes towards its own people, engaged in state-sponsored terrorism, was a threat to the United States and allies of ours, so the idea that they would have nuclear weapons would be extraordinarily dangerous,” he said.

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“What I also believed was that the regime was not entirely irrational, that they had a survival instinct, and that when you carry out the military force, innocent people die.”

Under the agreement, Iran sharply reduced its stockpile of enriched uranium and allowed international inspectors to monitor its nuclear facilities. Tehran was permitted to retain limited low-enriched uranium for civilian energy use. “There’s no dispute that it worked, and we didn’t, we didn’t have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the Strait of Hormuz,” Obama argued.

The deal remained active until 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, calling it “a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.” Following the US withdrawal, Iran gradually expanded its uranium enrichment program. The JCPOA had capped enrichment below 4 percent, but Iran now possesses uranium enriched to 60 percent, significantly closer to weapons-grade levels. Critics of the agreement have long argued that the deal’s sunset clauses only delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions rather than permanently ending them.

Trump has maintained that Iran should not be allowed to possess any highly enriched uranium and continues to push for a tougher agreement amid renewed negotiations and regional instability. “If a Deal happens under ‘TRUMP,’ it will guarantee Peace, Security, and Safety, not only for Israel and the Middle East, but for Europe, America, and everywhere else,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in April.

“It will be something that the entire World will be proud of, instead of the years of Embarrassment and Humiliation that we have been forced to suffer due to incompetent and cowardly leadership!” Recent exchanges of fire between the U.S. and Iran have further escalated tensions, while Pakistani intermediaries continue efforts to preserve a fragile ceasefire between the two nations.

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