Iran Gave Trump A Better Deal than Obama Got in 2015
Did you know that just hours before Donald Trump launched his illegal Middle East war that Iranian negotiators offered him a better deal on nuclear materials than Barack Obama’s administration negotiated in 2015?
The Iranians agreed to lower levels of enriching nuclear fuels, keeping them far below weapons grade, and other major concessions just so Trump could boast that he was a better negotiator than Obama.
From Trump’s point of view this could have been a major win, maybe even enough to make his name as the “peace president.”
From Tehran’s perspective it supported their claim that they would never build or use nuclear weapons because they are unholy.
What happened next provided Tehran with irrefutable proof that the American government is run by incompetents and liars who cannot be trusted.
After all, if you give the Trump administration what it says publicly it wants—verifiable guarantees that Iran will not build or have the capacity to build nuclear bombs—and the response is to kill your head of state what else would any rational, or even irrational, regime conclude?
Broken Promise
The illegal war on Iran violates Trump’s endless promises on the campaign trail that if returned to the White House he would guarantee no more “endless wars” in the Middle East or anywhere else.
Trump, campaigning to get back to the White House in 2023 and 2024, declared again and again that he would never go to war with Iran. The reason, he emphasized, was that he had superior and effective negotiating skills unlike, he said, Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Once again, the appallingly ignorant tyrant in the White House showed the “poor educated” MAGA who embrace him that they are fools, lacking the discernment to spot the devil in front of their faux Christian eyes.
The rest of us know that only Congress can declare war, making Trump’s attacks properly impeachable offenses. But only educated fools believe the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill will act to stop the madman from Queens.
Trump asserted that Biden, and later Harris, would bring us to “the brink of world War III.”
Indeed, in 2011 Trump declared that Obama would start a war with Iran because it was the only way he could win re-election in 2012.
Source Named
News that Iran offered Trump more than it gave Obama 11 years ago comes from the man who mediated indirect nuclear talks in Geneva between Tehran and Washington: the foreign minister of Oman, Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi.
Badr shuttled between the Iranian delegation in one room and another, occupied by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Trump emissary Steve Witkoff with messages aimed at avoiding military action by the U.S. and Israel.
When the nuclear talks broke off Friday in Switzerland, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr flew directly to Washington. There Badr gave interviews, informal and on camera, to David Rohde, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and my former colleague at the New York Times and later Reuters. Rohde, who spent seven months as a Taliban captive, has shown time and again how deeply and solidly he knows the Middle East. He now covers national security issues for MS Now.
Amateur Diplomats
Kushner and Witkoff are amateurs, both from real estate families with no formal training in diplomacy and no education in the centuries of mind-numbingly complex political, religious, and economic issues in the region from Egypt east to India that was largely controlled by the British in the 1800s and has been called “the Middle East” since at least 1902 (and by some since the 1850s).
Their public statements and official remarks make clear that Kushner and Witkoff aren’t equal to the best high school debaters in understanding geopolitical conflicts. Their track records in Gaza, Ukraine, and now Iran show why experience and education matter in diplomatic talks.
On Ukraine, they push a version of the Kremlin line, advancing the Trumpian credo that might makes right.
On Gaza, they talk to Israel and oil-rich Arabs—except for Palestinians, who are also Arab.
On Iran, they received valuable Iranian concessions, but didn’t persuade America’s conmander-in-chief to take the win and brag about what he got. Had Trump taken their offer, which include included allowing American oil companies to operate in Iran, it would have helped strengthen his oft-repeated 2016 claim that he would be the “peace president.”
Money Wasted
American taxpayers poured vast sums of money, especially since the end of World War II, into developing an extraordinarily sophisticated diplomatic corps that among other accomplishments got us past the Cold War without a nuclear exchange between Moscow and Washington. There’s plenty to criticize about our State Department, but the fact remains that diplomacy is always preferable, and cheaper, than war.
But from this seat-of-the-pants administration, run by amateurs and sycophants, many of them filled with hate, violence is embraced. Donald Trump has been public about how murderous desires since 1989 when he took out full page ads calling for the summary executions of five young men in a Central Park rape case. When evidence showed the five had been falsely accused—released after years in prison, the real perpetrator convicted— Trump doubled down on his call to murder the five.
Official violence is Trumpism in action, be it against American citizens shot to death or grabbed by ICE or an illegal Trump-directed war that on Saturday dropped a bomb on an Iranian school, killing more than 160 girls, teachers and staff.
We should remember that “ACTION IS CHARACTER,” as the great American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in the manuscript for his final novel, The Last Tycoon.
Trump’s lifelong actions violating the law tell you exactly who he is.
Attacking civilians, as American servicemen did this weekend, is the Russian style of warfare, a style that dates at least to the era of the boyars, as Russian aristocrats were called in the old Czarist era. Under the modern Czar, Vladimir Putin, Russia has repeatedly launched missiles against Ukrainian hospitals, schools, and other civilian facilitates that no civilized nation, no democratic nation, should or would tolerate from its leaders.
But America, for more than a year, has been not a democracy but a de facto dictatorship run by a convicted career felon who falsely claims that our Constitution empowers him to “do anything I want.”
Indeed, the question on the line now is whether America is indeed a civilized society anymore or just a land of cowards who will tolerate any injustice, any cruelty, and indulge the murderous rage flows from the addled brain of Donald Trump.
Who are we, America?
WHY IT MATTERS
1. A Diplomatic Off-Ramp Was Rejected Oman’s foreign minister, who mediated the Geneva talks, confirmed that Iran agreed to lower enrichment levels and other major concessions dcreport specifically to give Trump a better deal than Obama’s. Launching strikes after receiving those concessions raises fundamental questions about whether the administration was negotiating in good faith.
2. Campaign Promises Broken Trump repeatedly declared during his 2023–2024 campaign that he would never go to war with Iran, emphasizing his superior negotiating skills as the alternative to military conflict. The strikes directly contradict his “peace president” branding and his promise to end “endless wars.”
3. Amateur Diplomats in a High-Stakes Arena The U.S. side in Geneva was represented by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff — both from real estate backgrounds with no formal diplomatic training — rather than career State Department professionals. The article argues this sidelined decades of taxpayer-funded institutional expertise.
4. Constitutional War Powers at Issue The military campaign was launched without a congressional declaration of war, raising serious constitutional questions. The article notes that only Congress can declare war, framing the strikes as potentially impeachable offenses, though Republican leadership is unlikely to act.
5. Civilian Casualties Raise Moral Questions U.S. strikes reportedly hit civilian infrastructure including a hospital and a school, with the article reporting over 160 killed at one school alone. The piece draws direct parallels to Russian tactics in Ukraine.
“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.
9 Comments
Israel bombed hospitals and schools in Gaza. Why would the world expect anything else.
And it’s precisely the fact that a deal favorable to Trump had been reached that Netanyahu then attacked Iran.
Israel has been trying to goad the US into a war with Iran since the ’90s, and in Trump they’ve found a moron vain and stupid enough to take the bait. A deal that de-escalates tensions is exactly what Netanyahu DOES NOT want. Netanyahu and the right wing lunatics running Israel see Trump 2.0 as their one and only opportunity to achieve its three-decade obejective vis-a-vis Iran and, in their mind, they can’t allow a serious deal torpedo that opportunity. I’m not even sure Trump wanted this outcome, but between being played by Netanyahu and boxing himself in with his idiotic saber-rattling rhetoric against Iran over the past few weeks, here we are.
This is one of your best recent columns. Hang in there. We all need you. I read the NYT routinely and you constantly inform me of things I haven’t read elsewhere. Thank you from an old retired journalist.
Wasn’t the other side of the deal an Iranian demand that Israel recognize Palestine as a legitimate state — the “two-state solution?” Sounded like a good idea to me, a good “deal” to use Trump’s preferred language. But that would require pushing Netanyahu, which Trump is powerless to do (see Epstein’s “kompromat).
Thank you for sharing your insight.
But wasn’t Iran asking for something in return? Namely that Israel accept Palestine as a sovereign state . . . the two-state solution that Netanyahu violently rejects, and consequently so did Trump. That’s what I heard elsewhere. That offer would have been the morally right choice and would have prevented war.
.
Thank you David
yeah bookmaking this wasn’t a bad conclusion great post! .
Regarding your criticism of Israel for killing Gaza “journalists”. Here’s the evidence of their true profession: terrorists cross-dressing as journalists:
“The Evidence Is Clear: Hamas Abused the Press Vest — 10 Indisputable Cases
One of the most widely disseminated narratives about the war in Gaza is that more than 200 journalists have been killed by the IDF in what could amount to a grave war crime. The figures most frequently cited come from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), whose casualty list is widely used by media outlets and NGOs. These claims have helped shape the perception that Israel has systematically targeted innocent reporters and media workers.
Israel has consistently disputed this narrative, stating that many of the individuals described as journalists, and certainly all individuals specifically targeted, were in fact members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), or other militant groups. These claims were consistently dismissed. Yet independent analysis, including research by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, has found that 60% of those described as “journalists” or “media personnel” had documented ties to militant organizations. Additional cases have emerged in recent weeks.
In recent months, a growing body of information has begun to substantiate Israel’s claims. As militant groups and other organizations themselves have published martyrdom notices and tributes to fallen fighters, numerous individuals previously described as journalists have been openly acknowledged as members of Hamas, PIJ, or other armed factions. Importantly, these identifications come not from Israeli statements or evidence but from militant organizations and sources inside Gaza themselves. This article presents ten clear cases of individuals still listed by the CPJ as innocent journalists where the evidence shows otherwise.
This emerging evidence should prompt serious skepticism toward the prevailing narrative that Israel systematically targets innocent journalists and should compel the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to reassess its methodology in Gaza. Its heavy reliance on local sources, combined with the categorical dismissal of Israeli evidence, has repeatedly produced inaccurate classifications. These revelations should force a major reckoning. As militant groups themselves identify many of these supposed journalists as fighters and commanders, those who reflexively dismissed Israeli claims must now confront the possibility that the narrative they promoted was deeply flawed. A credible accounting of journalist fatalities requires correcting these errors.
Below are 10 of at least 35 documented cases in which individuals widely described as journalists were in fact combatants from Hamas and other groups. The evidence in these cases does not rely on Israeli claims, though accepting those claims would add dozens more. Instead, it comes from the militant organizations themselves and from local martyr notices and social media tributes, making these identifications difficult to dispute.
Note: For simplicity the title refers to Hamas, but several of the cases documented below involve members of other militant groups.
Yacoup Al-Borsh يعقوب عبد الكريم مصطفى البرش (ID 803505668, Age 33)
Yacoup Al-Borsh was not a “photographer” but a Hamas combatant killed in action
Yacoup Al-Borsh was killed on November 13, 2023, in an IDF airstrike on his family home in Jabalia. The CPJ, citing local media and family members, described Yacoup as a journalist for family-owned Namaa Radio and Naama Sports Club. However, extensive evidence shows a different picture. The Al-Borsh family has close ties to Hamas leadership. A relative, Dr. Muneer Al-Borsh, is Director General of Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health. Yacoup himself was a Hamas combatant. Numerous social media posts and martyr notices identify him as a fighter and “mujahid,” and photos and a video show him armed and in military uniform. Yacoup Al-Borsh is among the most extensively documented cases of a supposed “journalist” who was in fact a Hamas combatant.
Mahdi Al-Mamluk مهدي حسن محمد المملوك (ID 801389321, Age 38)
Official PIJ “martyr” poster confirming Al-Mamluk as a commander, not a journalist
Mahdi Al-Mamluk was killed on November 11, 2024, in an airstrike near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. According to the CPJ, Al-Mamluk worked as a broadcast engineer for PIJ-affiliated channel Al-Quds Al-Youm TV and had been reporting on the siege of the hospital. However, PIJ itself later revealed a different reality. In an official publication listing 61 of its military commanders killed in the war, PIJ identified Al-Mamluk as one of its senior members. While CPJ cited colleagues who claimed he was merely “supervising coverage of the war and the people’s suffering,” PIJ’s own admission shows that this supposed civilian media worker was in fact a senior combatant. The case also exposes a recurring flaw in CPJ research: its routine reliance on family members and locals to establish civilian or journalistic status, despite the widely known risk Gazans face if they reveal that the dead were combatants. As this case demonstrates, such accounts often prove misleading once militant groups themselves publish their martyr lists.
Rizq Abu Shakian رزق باسم رزق أبو شكيان (ID 402921084, Age 26)
Rizq Abu Shakian as a “journalist” listed by the CPJ. In reality, he was a Hamas fighter.
Rizq Abu Shakian was killed on July 6, 2024, in an Israeli airstrike on his home in Nuseirat, central Gaza. According to the CPJ, Abu Shakian worked as a media worker for the “pro-Hamas Palestine Now Agency.” CPJ cited comments from his wife and a colleague who claimed he was simply “dedicated to his work,” presenting him as an innocent journalist killed in his home. However, Hamas-affiliated Telegram channels later revealed a different reality. A video and memorial posts identify Abu Shakian as a fighter in Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades and commemorate him as a “mujahid.” As in other cases, the portrayal of Abu Shakian as an innocent journalist relied heavily on testimony from family members and local colleagues—sources that often prove unreliable once militant groups themselves publish their martyrdom records and internal acknowledgments.
Mustafa Bahr مصطفى خضر عبد بحر (ID 802817890, Age 32)
Mustafa Bahr founded Palestine Breaking News but was really a special commander in the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the 3rd largest armed group in Gaza
Mustafa Bahr was killed on March 31, 2024, in an apparent Israeli airstrike near the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City. According to the CPJ, Bahr was a reporter and co-founder of the Palestine Breaking News website. However, social media posts from the day of his death and in early 2026 identified him as a combatant, a “mujahid commander.” Various mourning posters and social media tributes confirmed that he had served as a special operations commander in Liwa al-Tawhid, part of the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades. A video depicts him in uniform participating in military exercises. Despite the extensive documentation identifying his combatant role, CPJ has continued to include Bahr on its list of journalists killed in Gaza. Mustafa’s brother Abdul Rahman Bahr, another so-called journalist, was likewise a combatant killed in action and profiled next.
Abdul Rahman Bahr عبد الرحمن خضر عبد بحر (ID 407866896, Age 22)
Abdul Rahman Bahr was lauded as a mujahid killed in action, not a journalist
Abdul Rahman Bahr, the brother of Mustafa Bahr profiled previously, was killed on October 6, 2024, in an apparent drone strike in Gaza City. Bahr also worked for the Palestine Breaking News website. However, social media posts published the same day praised Bahr as a “mujahid” who was “advancing, not retreating,” and mourning posters identified him as a “mujahid martyr.” On February 15, 2025, the Facebook page of the Al-Omari Mosque in Jabalia issued a memorial poster referencing “Al-Aqsa Flood” and depicting Bahr as an armed “mujahid” fighter. While CPJ and others claim that Mustafa and Abdul Bahr were innocent brothers in the media business, it was really a cover for the primary family business: the military. They were both killed in action.
Amr Abu Odeh عمرو ناهض عبد الرحمن أبو عوده (ID 404320996, Age 25)
Amr Abu Odeh was a photographer but also a Hamas Qassam Brigades terrorist
Amr Abu Odeh was killed on October 13, 2024, in an apparent drone strike in the Al-Shati area of Gaza City. According to the CPJ, Odeh worked as a freelance photojournalist for Andalou Agency and Reuters. However, memorial posts following his death describe him as a “mujahid,” “one of the heroes of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades,” and a member of the Hanoun Battalion. Several images also show him armed and wearing military fatigues, indicating that the individual presented by the CPJ as an innocent media worker was killed in action as a Hamas terrorist.
Bilal Rajab بلال محمد رباح رجب (ID 403012818, Age 27)
Bilal Rajab was a journalist for a PIJ affiliated outlet. But he was also a PIJ terrorist.
Bilal Rajab was killed on November 1, 2024, in an apparent airstrike in the Al-Firas market area of Gaza City. According to the CPJ, Rajab worked as a camera operator for the PIJ–affiliated Al-Quds Al-Youm TV. However, a military mourning poster from a militant related Telegram channel and shared by his brother confirmed that Rajab was a member of Saraya al-Quds, the armed wing of PIJ, serving in the Shuja’iyya Battalion of the Gaza Brigade. Rajab is depicted in a military uniform indicating that yet another individual presented as an innocent media worker was in fact a combatant killed in action.
Ahmed Abu Sharia أحمد يوسف شحادة أبو شريعه (ID 803771385, Age 31)
Ahmed Abu Sharia was a commander in the Mujahideen Brigades. He was killed in a strike along with his 16-year-old cousin who was also a member of this group.
Abu Sharia was killed on November 19, 2024, in an apparent IDF tank strike on his home. According to his father, Abu Sharia was killed together with a cousin in the same attack. According to the CPJ, Abu Sharia worked as a freelance photographer for outlets such as Iran’s Tasnim News Agency. The CPJ interviewed his father who said Ahmed worked “to convey the truth about what was happening in Gaza”—but not the truth about his status as a senior combatant. Three days after his death the Mujahideen Brigades acknowledged Abu Sharia on their Telegram channel as a field commander in the organization. Ahmed’s 16-year-old cousin Omar Ahmed Attia Abu Sharia (ID 426301396) was killed alongside him and was similarly identified as a member of the Mujahideen Brigades. So according to the group’s own admissions, the IDF did not target and kill a journalist and an innocent child but two combatants from a terrorist organization.
Jamal Al-Faqaawi جمال عارف سالم الفقعاوي (ID 402220396, Age 27)
Jamal al-Faqawi was mourned by Iranian media as an innocent journalist, but he was in fact an active member of PIJ, killed in action
Jamal Al-Faqaawi was killed on October 25, 2023, in an apparent IDF airstrike on his family home in Khan Younis. According to the CPJ, Al-Faqaawi worked as a freelancer for the PIJ–affiliated Mithaq Media Foundation. However, social media posts mourning his death described Al-Faqaawi as a “martyr fighter” and depicted him in military uniform. Images circulated on Telegram channels dedicated to PIJ / Saraya al-Quds military content also featured him alongside the inverted triangle symbol, a marker commonly used to denote attacks on Israeli forces. These records indicate that the individual presented as an innocent media worker was a PIJ terrorist.
Maisara Ahmed Salah ميسرة أحمد صلاح صلاح (ID 407934363, Age 22)
Maisara Ahmed Salah was not a journalist, but a Hamas operative who may have participated in the 10/7 massacre inside Israel
Maisara Ahmed Salah was killed on November 30, 2024, in an apparent drone strike near the Awni al-Harthani School in Beit Lahia. According to the CPJ, Salah worked as a video editor and freelancer for Quds News Network. However, multiple martyr posters and social media posts indicate that Salah was also a Hamas operative. He is identified as a member of the Khulafa (Caliphs) Battalion in Jabalia, and reports indicate he joined an Al-Qassam Brigades “Saqr” unit that infiltrated Israel on October 7. Several images show Salah armed and wearing military fatigues, and one notice describes him as a “mujahid martyr” of the Khulafa Battalion. A eulogy posted by his brother on Instagram referred to him as “the heroic Qassami mujahid.”
This article is in large part based on the research and analysis by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, @GabrielEpsteinX @MiddleEastBuka @GnasherJew, and other sources.”