Subject: Re: Vance Failed. No Deal.
The JCPOA was stupidity on stilts, a deal designed to make Obama look like some kind of international statesman that he never was. It had an expiration date after which all sanctions were lifted and Iran was free to do whatever it wanted.

And then we could have done whatever we wanted. Like reinstate sanctions if they went after a nuclear weapons program again.

You've continually misunderstood the JCPOA. The purpose of the deal was to push out their breakout time. To prevent them from enriching to within a few weeks of weapons grade material and instead keep them at about six months to a year from breakout. That way they were physically constrained from being able to sprint to a nuke without us being able to reinstate sanctions. The carrot for that was to be free of sanctions as long as they stayed very far away from breakout. And they did stay very far away from breakout, until Trump abrogated the deal - whereupon they enriched and enriched so instead of six months to a year away from breakout, they were at two weeks or so. Rather than keep them physically far away from breakout in exchange for sanctions relief (with everyone being free to reinstate sanctions if Iran decided to go back to higher enrichment after the deal was over) Trump decided to rip up the deal so they would race to being within weeks from a nuke. "Not a great plan."

And the point doesn't depend on whether you think the deal was a good deal or the dumbest deal in the world. Trump has shown that he will not honor prior deals. Deals with Iran (like JCPOA), or deals that he himself negotiated (like the NAFTA revisions) - if he doesn't like a past deal, he walks. Which makes it impossible for him to credibly offer Iran enriched uranium for their power program. They know he can't be relied on not to abrogate that deal.

Then we're doomed.

Yes. This is what we've been telling you. The reason that past Presidents never attacked Iran wasn't because they were weak or stupid. It's because the Straits of Hormuz is one of the most war-gamed scenario in the history of the modern U.S. military, and no one's ever figured out a way to win it. Even before things like drones existed, there was no real way to prevent the Iranians from using easily concealable very short-range missiles to harass civilian tankers.

It's becoming clear that the Administration never solved this problem. It's not entirely clear they actually had any clear plan for how they would respond if Iran did the obvious thing and seized the strait. They were obviously aware of that possibly (again, it's one of the most-studied problems in the theater), but it's not clear they had figured out what they were going to do once it happened.

Or we could seize a number of the islands that Iran uses including Kharg and make them bomb their own production equipment.

That wouldn't open the strait. It doesn't solve the problem. They'd prefer not to bomb their own production facilities, but whether they do or not it can't prevent them from attacking civilian vessels transiting the strait.