'This should remind us that threats and bombing, even when they seem attractive, cannot be the solution'
![Former US President Barack Obama visits a play-based learning preschool in the Bronx, New York, in April alongside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, speaking with students. [Getty Images]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/06/15/news-p.v1.20260615.b06f237fb89d4048abc55f0063f4b5d9_P1.jpg)
As the United States and Iran reached a cease-fire agreement, former President Barack Obama said he doubts any future denuclearization deal that Washington negotiates with Tehran will represent a significant improvement over the nuclear accord his administration struck 11 years ago — an agreement Donald Trump later abandoned.
In a portion of an exclusive interview with ABC News aired Sunday, Obama expressed skepticism, saying he questioned whether any future deal between the two countries would be "markedly different or a major improvement" over the original accord.
The interview was conducted before news broke of the cease-fire agreement between the United States and Iran.
The Obama administration concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran in July 2015, under which Tehran agreed to reduce its stockpiles of nuclear material, scale back its nuclear manufacturing facilities and place its nuclear sites under international oversight in exchange for relief from international sanctions. Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018, after which Iran also began scaling back its compliance.
Obama said the conflict had reinforced his belief that international problems cannot be resolved through force rather than diplomacy. "This should remind us that threats and bombing, even when they seem attractive, cannot be the solution," he said. "I think the lesson here is that even if a diplomatic agreement doesn't solve 100 percent of the problem, you should resolve 80 to 90 percent of it and avoid war."
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