Obama staffer Ben Rhodes on Iran negotiations and the battle for American identity

The U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement represents a fundamental strategic failure that empowered Iranian hardliners and precipitated unnecessary military conflict. By abandoning a multilateral framework that ensured compliance, the U.S. sacrificed its international credibility and triggered a global financial crisis centered on the Strait of Hormuz. Similarly, the shift toward aggressive isolationism regarding Cuba ignores the lack of a tangible national security threat and risks creating a humanitarian catastrophe near the U.S. border. These geopolitical tensions mirror a deeper domestic struggle over American identity, as explored in the book *All We Say*. This work contrasts the exclusionary nationalism of the Trump era—which centers on individual power—with the progressive, inclusive vision of a "more perfect union" that seeks to expand citizenship rights and reconcile the nation’s complex, often contradictory, history.