While national security experts will debate the merits of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration for years to come, one thing is clear: the pact always ensured Washington and Tehran were headed towards a nuclear crisis. The only question was when it would happen—not if.

And none of that is President Trump’s fault. In fact, we can thank President Obama for this growing international crisis – one that could even balloon into a shooting war.

IRAN ANNOUNCES IT WILL ENRICH URANIUM BEYOND NUCLEAR DEAL LIMITS

The devil is in the details of the deal itself. How it was structured, and the items that were omitted, by President Obama, Ben Rhodes and their allies, ultimately sowed the seeds of its own self-destruction.

But before I get to the deal’s flaws, I must give credit where credit is due: The deal itself was not a complete failure, in that it does do one thing quite well (albeit temporarily), and that is it does, for a long stretch of time, keep Iran’s nuclear bomb aspirations locked down. Tehran agreed to, among other things, intrusive international inspections, a cap on its uranium stockpile to 300kgs (a 98 percent reduction) and limits on uranium enrichment far below anything that can be used to make a nuclear weapon. Additionally, the path to a plutonium-based nuclear weapon is largely eliminated as well.

That’s all for the good. Before the 2015 accord was signed, Iran had enough centrifuges and nuclear material to build as many as 8 to 10 nuclear weapons, perhaps creating the first one within three months—with the potential of sparking what could be a nasty regional war with large losses of life.

Today, that timeframe has been pushed back to a year. For that, the Obama administration surely deserves praise.

Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends, in large part because the agreement itself has several massive problems that turn it from a historic and transformative accord into a giant band-aid that ensures a crisis, sooner or later.

For starters, the deal clearly leaves intact large sections of Iran’s civilian nuclear program—with the ability to still enrich nuclear fuel—intact. While credit should be given for the large restrictions put in place by Obama’s negotiating team, the problem is never truly eliminated, just scaled back.

History will show that it was President Obama’s band-aid approach to foreign policy that deserved the credit for this disaster.

And that problem will surely get worse over time, as the poison pill in the deal was always that almost all its restrictions, designed to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear bomb, expire within 12-15 years after the deal was signed. That’s right, in a little more than a decade, Iran would have been free to do whatever it wanted with its nuclear program, unless a new accord was signed.

And that’s not all. The deal itself never addresses the ways in which Iran could deliver a nuclear weapon. That means no restrictions on Iran’s quickly growing capabilities to research and develop ballistic and cruise missiles. That’s like taking a criminal’s ammo away but allowing him to keep the gun, and worse still, allowing him to build better and better guns—think long-range missiles like ICBMs that could hit the U.S. homeland or allies like Europe—while waiting to get his ammo back.

There was also no attempt in this agreement dealing with Iran’s thug-like behavior internationally. Tehran has been causing problems throughout the Middle East for decades. From screaming “death to America” and threating Israel for decades, to arming terror groups around the region and more, Iran is perhaps the ultimate of rogue nations. It is hellbent on dislodging America from the Middle East for good. And yet, none of this was addressed in the nuclear accord, nor was Iran held accountable for any of its aggressive acts throughout the region.

Taking all of that into consideration, the Trump administration was put in a terrible bind upon taking office.

Staying in the deal meant the threat posed by Iran would only grow over time, and would leave an economically powerful and rich Iran—thanks to its sales of oil and gas—with the ability to develop a nuclear arsenal shortly after Trump left office.

The other option—which it seems Trump has chosen—was to take on Tehran now, when it is much weaker, rather than leaving the problem to a future U.S. president to deal with (much like Obama did to Trump on North Korea). That meant pulling out of the deal, imposing sanctions and trying to force the issue to a head now, when America’s position is much stronger.

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What happens next is anyone’s guess. At least for the moment, Iran seems to be pushing for talks with Europe. Tehran threatened 60 days ago to abandon many of its commitments under the deal if Europe didn’t meet a deadline this weekend to somehow relieve sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. Only a week ago, Iran exceeded the cap on its stockpile of low-grade uranium. Then, to make matters worse, it said it will resume purifying uranium beyond the 3.67 percent enrichment allowed under the agreement. While it would need to get to 90 percent enrichment in order to build a nuclear weapon, all of this put together means only one thing: a showdown is coming.

Whatever happens now – whether it is a regional war in the Middle East, or a time of tense negotiations that lasts for years – it makes no rational sense to blame President Trump for a crisis with Iran. History will show that it was President Obama’s band-aid approach to foreign policy that deserved the credit for this disaster.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM HARRY KAZIANIS

California Rep. Eric Swalwell on Monday dropped out of the race for his party’s presidential nomination, becoming the first of what’s expected to be many Democrats to give up their presidential aspirations as the crowded field winnows down.

Swalwell, who in recent polls failed to garner even one percent among primary and caucus voters, said he was abandoning his presidential run in favor of focusing on getting reelected to House of Representatives.

“Being honest with ourselves, we had to look at how much money we were raising and where we were in the polls,” Swalwell said during a news conference at a union hall in Dublin, Calif. “We have to be honest about our candidacy.”

SWALWELL CHANGES BABY’S DIAPERS IN UNUSUAL FUNDRAISING PITCH

He added: “Today ends our presidential campaign, but it is the beginning of a new opportunity in Congress.”

Swalwell did not endorse any of his former primary rivals, saying only that he is impressed with the experience of the field.

“If Megan Rapinoe gets in the race, I’ll probably endorse her,” Swalwell said jokingly, in reference to the U.S. Women’s National Team soccer star.

Swalwell, who launched his campaign for the presidency just three months ago, focused much of his campaign on combatting gun violence. He supported a ban assault rifles and starting a mandatory buyback program.

“Keep your pistols, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns,” he said on the debate stage last month, “but we can take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people.”

His proposals drew the support of two leading Democrats in former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who both voiced their support Monday to his anti-gun work shortly after Swalwell dropped out of the race.

SOME 2020 DEMS TURN ON KAMALA HARRIS FOR ATTACKING BIDEN, THEN BACKTRACKING

Swallwell had a standout moment during the Democrats’ first debates when the 38-year-old lawmaker recalled being only 6 years old when he saw Biden speak — saying the former senator and vice president was “right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.”

Biden retorted, “I’m still holding onto that torch.”

Speculation started to mount about Swalwell’s departure from the primary after he canceled his Independence Day events in the key early voting state of New Hampshire last week.

Swalwell’s exit left 24 Democrats still vying for their party’s presidential nomination, although that number was expected to drop as the next debate looms on July 20. That debate is set to include only 20 candidates who have either hit 1 percent in three qualifying polls or have snagged 65,000 donors.

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So far 21 candidates have hit those marks, so the Democratic National Committee will prioritize candidates who hit both the polling and financial thresholds, followed by candidates who only have the polling benchmark – sorted by poll average – and finally, candidates who have hit only the donor mark.

According to the most recent polls, Biden still held a commanding lead in the race for the Democratic nomination, but Harris has seen her standings skyrocket to second place after a strong debate performance. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., were the only other candidates to poll in the double-digits.

President Trump announced Monday that the U.S. will “no longer deal” with the British ambassador to the United States, after leaked diplomatic cables showed the ambassador secretly slamming Trump in frank and personal terms.

The extraordinary development seemingly rendered Britain’s representative to the U.S. a persona non grata for the first time in more than a century. And it came amid reports that the ambassador, Kim Darroch, is actually popular among some White House officials.

“I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S.,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “We will no longer deal with him.”

On Sunday, Trump called Darroch ineffective and implied he wasn’t even worth responding to.

“We’ve had our little ins and outs with a couple of countries, and I would say that the U.K. — their ambassador has not served the U.K. well, I can tell you that,” Trump told reporters. “We are not big fans of that man, and he has not served the U.K. well. So, I can understand it and I can say things about him, but I won’t bother.”

Trump also tweeted Monday: “I have been very critical about the way the U.K. and Prime Minister Theresa May handled Brexit. What a mess she and her representatives have created. I told her how it should be done, but she decided to go another way.”

He later added, “The good news for the wonderful United Kingdom is that they will soon have a new Prime Minister. While I thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent State Visit last month, it was the Queen who I was most impressed with!”

Responding to Trump’s remarks on Monday, a Downing Street spokesperson said the U.K. has “a special and enduring relationship with the US based on our long history and commitment to shared values and that will continue to be the case.”

“‘We have made clear to the US how unfortunate this leak is,” the spokesperson said. “The selective extracts leaked do not reflect the closeness of, and the esteem in which we hold, the relationship. At the same time we have also underlined the importance of Ambassadors being able to provide honest, unvarnished assessments of the politics in their country. Sir Kim Darroch continues to have the Prime Minister’s full support.”

WATCH: TRUMP SAYS U.S. ‘NOT BIG FANS’ OF DARROCH

In the leaked documents, Darroch described the Trump administration as “diplomatically clumsy and inept” and said he doubted it would become “substantially more normal.”

The memo was one of several documents published by the Mail on Sunday in which Darroch apparently made highly negative statements about the government of Britain’s closest ally.

Josh Dawsey, a reporter at The Washington Post, wrote on Twitter that “Trump’s own team likes the ambassador and regularly dines and socializes at the embassy with him.”

Added George Conway, the husband of top White House aide Kellyanne Conway and a frequent critic of Trump: “Indeed they do. They never miss parties at the British Embassy. They love the ambassador, as does everyone else (except for a certain narcissist-in-chief). Frankly, the ambassador was being kind in his assessment of the narcissist-in-chief.”

International incidents involving British diplomats in the U.S. are rare, but not unprecedented. British ambassdor Lionel Sackville-West was summarily sacked in 1888 for writing the so-called Murchison letter, which touched off a firestorm by indicating that Britain preferred Grover Cleveland over Republican Benjamin Harrison. (Republicans publicized the letter, helping Harrison win the White House.)

And in May 1856, President Franklin Pierce expelled John F. Crampton, then the British ambasador to the U.S., and several other British diplomats, following a lengthy spat over British efforts to recruit North Americans to fight in Crimea.

“It’s not entirely unprecedented,” Dan Drezner, Professor of International Politics at The Fletcher School of Tufts University, told Fox News. “When WikiLeaks released a trove of diplomatic cables, the Bolivarian leader of Ecuador expelled the U.S. Ambassador. Even in that case, however, the Ecuadoran government went through the proper diplomatic channels. A PNG-by-tweet for the leak of cables confirming mainstream media reporting of the Trump administration is definitely new.”

HAPPIER TIMES: RECAPPING TRUMP’S VISIT WITH THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND IN JUNE

Over the weekend, Britain’s Foreign Office did not challenge the authenticity of the leaked Darroch documents, which covered the period of 2017 to the present, and came to Darroch’s defense. It called the leak “mischievous behavior” and said the public has expected diplomats to provide honest assessments of the politics in the countries where they’re posted.

The Trump administration has broken from Britain on key issues such as climate change and preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

The Foreign Office said the leaks would not harm the productive relationship between the British government and the Trump White House. A formal investigation of the leak may be set in motion in the coming days.

It is customary for senior British diplomats posted overseas to file straightforward memos to senior ministers and security services analysts back home so political trends and possible threats to British interests could be gauged, but it’s unusual for a large number of them to be made public.

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Justice Secretary David Gauke called the leak “disgraceful” but said Britain “should expect our ambassadors to tell the truth, as they see it.”

Trump has not hesitated to inject himself into Britain’s political fray, repeatedly criticizing Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit negotiating strategy and praising both Brexit party leader Nigel Farage and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a strong contender to become the next prime minister.

Fox News’ Lukas Mikelionis and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Christine Pelosi, a Democratic National Committee official and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, warned conspicuously on Saturday evening that it is “quite likely that some of our faves are implicated” in the “horrific” sex-trafficking case against politically connected financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein is due in court following his sudden arrest Saturday in New York on new sex-trafficking charges involving allegations dating to the early 2000s, according to law enforcement officials. He has been accused of paying underage girls for massages and sexually abusing them at his mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., and in New York City. His 72-acre private estate on the Virgin Islands, a home said to be nicknamed “Orgy Island,” also has been under scrutiny.

“This Epstein case is horrific and the young women deserve justice,” Pelosi tweeted. “It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may – whether on Republicans or Democrats.”

It was unclear exactly to whom Pelosi was referring, but Epstein has long been connected with high-profile figures, including Britain’s Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton. Court documents obtained by Fox News in 2016 showed that Clinton took at least 26 trips flying aboard Epstein’s private jet, known as the “Lolita Express,” and apparently ditched his Secret Service detail on some of the excursions. Records showed that President Trump may have flown on the jet at least once.

The president previously called attention to Clinton’s dealings with the financier.

“Nice guy — uh, got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island, with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in 2015, referring to Clinton’s connections with Epstein. “A lot of problems.”

Meanwhile, Trump biographer Tim O’Brien this weekend reposted an excerpt fom a 2002 profile of Epstein in New York Magazine, in which Trump told a reporter, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

However, Trump’s legal team more recently has denied the two were friends.

Trump banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago estate “because Epstein sexually assaulted an underage girl at the club,” according to court documents filed by Bradley Edwards, the lawyer who has represented several Epstein accusers. That claim has not been confirmed by Trump or Mar-a-Lago.

EPSTEIN ONCE CLAIMED HE CO-FOUNDED THE CLINTON FOUNDATION

Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown said following Epstein’s arrest that Trump and Epstein “went to dinner parties at each other’s houses, Trump was also on his plane. Probably not as much as a lot of other people because, you know, Trump had his own plane.”

Epstein was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. The wealthy hedge fund manager is slated to appear Monday in Manhattan federal court.

Epstein’s arrest, first reported by The Daily Beast, came amid renewed scrutiny of the once-secret 2008 plea deal that ended the federal investigation against him.

He ultimately served 13 months in jail and registered as a sex offender after pleading guilty to two lesser state prostitution charges, with one involving a girl whom prosecutors called a prostitute — even though she was only 14 years old.

Epstein had faced a possible life sentence prior to that plea deal, which has been challenged in Florida federal court. The deal also required he reach financial settlements with dozens of his once-teenage victims and register as a sex offender.

CUSHY PLEA BARGAIN WITH EPSTEIN WAS SO BAD IT BROKE THE LAW, JUDGE RULES

Epstein’s deal was overseen by former Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who is now Trump’s labor secretary. Acosta has defended the plea deal as appropriate under the circumstances, though the White House said in February that it was “looking into” his handling of the arrangement.

“This matter has been publicly addressed previously, including during confirmation hearings,” a Labor Department spokesperson told Fox News. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida has defended the actions in this case across three administrations.”

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra of Florida ruled earlier this year that Epstein’s victims should have been consulted under federal law about the deal, and he was weighing whether to invalidate the non-prosecution agreement, or NPA, that protected Epstein from federal charges.

It was not immediately clear whether the cases involved the same accusers since nearly all have remained anonymous.

WHAT WERE THE DETAILS OF THE ORIGINAL EPSTEIN PLEA AGREEMENT?

Federal prosecutors recently filed court papers in the Florida case contending Epstein’s deal must stand.

“The past cannot be undone; the government committed itself to the NPA, and the parties have not disputed that Epstein complied with its provisions,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.

They acknowledged, however, that the failure to consult accusers “fell short of the government’s dedication to serve victims to the best of its ability” and that prosecutors “should have communicated with the victims in a straightforward and transparent way.”

The accusers in the Florida case have until Monday to respond to the Justice Department’s filing.

Investigators said at least 40 underage girls were brought into Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion for what turned into sexual encounters after fixers looked for suitable girls locally and in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world, according to court records in Florida.

In addition, some girls allegedly were brought to Epstein’s homes in New York City, New Mexico and a private Caribbean island, according to court documents.

Saturday’s arrest also came just days after a federal appeals court in New York ordered the unsealing of nearly 2,000 pages of records in a since-settled defamation case involving Epstein.

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Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse released a statement Saturday calling for Epstein to be held without bail pending trial.

“This monster received a pathetically soft sentence last time and his victims deserve nothing less than justice,” Sasse said in the statement. “Justice doesn’t depend on the size of your bank account.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

While national security experts will debate the merits of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration for years to come, one thing is clear: the pact always ensured Washington and Tehran were headed towards a nuclear crisis. The only question was when it would happen—not if.

And none of that is President Trump’s fault. In fact, we can thank President Obama for this growing international crisis – one that could even balloon into a shooting war.

IRAN ANNOUNCES IT WILL ENRICH URANIUM BEYOND NUCLEAR DEAL LIMITS

The devil is in the details of the deal itself. How it was structured, and the items that were omitted, by President Obama, Ben Rhodes and their allies, ultimately sowed the seeds of its own self-destruction.

But before I get to the deal’s flaws, I must give credit where credit is due: The deal itself was not a complete failure, in that it does do one thing quite well (albeit temporarily), and that is it does, for a long stretch of time, keep Iran’s nuclear bomb aspirations locked down. Tehran agreed to, among other things, intrusive international inspections, a cap on its uranium stockpile to 300kgs (a 98 percent reduction) and limits on uranium enrichment far below anything that can be used to make a nuclear weapon. Additionally, the path to a plutonium-based nuclear weapon is largely eliminated as well.

That’s all for the good. Before the 2015 accord was signed, Iran had enough centrifuges and nuclear material to build as many as 8 to 10 nuclear weapons, perhaps creating the first one within three months—with the potential of sparking what could be a nasty regional war with large losses of life.

Today, that timeframe has been pushed back to a year. For that, the Obama administration surely deserves praise.

Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends, in large part because the agreement itself has several massive problems that turn it from a historic and transformative accord into a giant band-aid that ensures a crisis, sooner or later.

For starters, the deal clearly leaves intact large sections of Iran’s civilian nuclear program—with the ability to still enrich nuclear fuel—intact. While credit should be given for the large restrictions put in place by Obama’s negotiating team, the problem is never truly eliminated, just scaled back.

History will show that it was President Obama’s band-aid approach to foreign policy that deserved the credit for this disaster.

And that problem will surely get worse over time, as the poison pill in the deal was always that almost all its restrictions, designed to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear bomb, expire within 12-15 years after the deal was signed. That’s right, in a little more than a decade, Iran would have been free to do whatever it wanted with its nuclear program, unless a new accord was signed.

And that’s not all. The deal itself never addresses the ways in which Iran could deliver a nuclear weapon. That means no restrictions on Iran’s quickly growing capabilities to research and develop ballistic and cruise missiles. That’s like taking a criminal’s ammo away but allowing him to keep the gun, and worse still, allowing him to build better and better guns—think long-range missiles like ICBMs that could hit the U.S. homeland or allies like Europe—while waiting to get his ammo back.

There was also no attempt in this agreement dealing with Iran’s thug-like behavior internationally. Tehran has been causing problems throughout the Middle East for decades. From screaming “death to America” and threating Israel for decades, to arming terror groups around the region and more, Iran is perhaps the ultimate of rogue nations. It is hellbent on dislodging America from the Middle East for good. And yet, none of this was addressed in the nuclear accord, nor was Iran held accountable for any of its aggressive acts throughout the region.

Taking all of that into consideration, the Trump administration was put in a terrible bind upon taking office.

Staying in the deal meant the threat posed by Iran would only grow over time, and would leave an economically powerful and rich Iran—thanks to its sales of oil and gas—with the ability to develop a nuclear arsenal shortly after Trump left office.

The other option—which it seems Trump has chosen—was to take on Tehran now, when it is much weaker, rather than leaving the problem to a future U.S. president to deal with (much like Obama did to Trump on North Korea). That meant pulling out of the deal, imposing sanctions and trying to force the issue to a head now, when America’s position is much stronger.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

What happens next is anyone’s guess. At least for the moment, Iran seems to be pushing for talks with Europe. Tehran threatened 60 days ago to abandon many of its commitments under the deal if Europe didn’t meet a deadline this weekend to somehow relieve sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. Only a week ago, Iran exceeded the cap on its stockpile of low-grade uranium. Then, to make matters worse, it said it will resume purifying uranium beyond the 3.67 percent enrichment allowed under the agreement. While it would need to get to 90 percent enrichment in order to build a nuclear weapon, all of this put together means only one thing: a showdown is coming.

Whatever happens now – whether it is a regional war in the Middle East, or a time of tense negotiations that lasts for years – it makes no rational sense to blame President Trump for a crisis with Iran. History will show that it was President Obama’s band-aid approach to foreign policy that deserved the credit for this disaster.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM HARRY KAZIANIS

NEW YORK — A federal grand jury in New York is investigating top Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy, examining whether he used his position as vice chair of President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee to drum up business deals with foreign leaders, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and people familiar with the matter.

A wide-ranging subpoena the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn recently sent to Trump’s inaugural committee seeks records relating to 20 individuals and businesses. All have connections to Broidy, his investment and defense contracting firms, and foreign officials he pursued deals with — including the current president of Angola and two politicians in Romania.

Prosecutors appear to be investigating whether Broidy exploited his access to Trump for personal gain and violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to offer foreign officials “anything of value” to gain a business advantage. Things of value in this case could have been an invitation to the January 2017 inaugural events or access to Trump.

A statement released to the AP by Broidy’s attorneys said that at no point did Broidy or his global security firm Circinus have a contract or exchange of money with “any Romanian government agency, proxy or agent.” It also said that while Circinus did reach an agreement with Angola in 2016 there was no connection whatsoever to the inauguration or Broidy’s role on the inaugural committee.

“Any implication to the contrary is completely false,” the statement said.

The Brooklyn probe appears to be distinct from an inquiry by Manhattan federal prosecutors into the inaugural committee’s record $107 million fundraising and whether foreigners unlawfully contributed.

It followed a request last year by Democratic U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut that the Justice Department investigate whether Broidy “used access to President Trump as a valuable enticement to foreign officials who may be in a position to advance Mr. Broidy’s business interests abroad.”

Brooklyn federal prosecutors and the president’s inaugural committee declined to comment on the grand jury proceedings, which are secret. But two people familiar with the matter told the AP that the committee has already complied with the subpoena, issued in April, and a third said the FBI has interviewed at least one of Broidy’s business associates named in the subpoena.

The people spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Broidy, a 61-year-old Los Angeles businessman, made a fortune in investments before moving into defense contracting and has played prominent roles in GOP fundraising, including as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2006 to 2008 and vice chair of the Trump Victory Committee in 2016.

But there have been problems along the way. In 2009, investigators looked into the New York state pension fund’s decision to invest $250 million with Broidy and found he had plied state officials with nearly $1 million in illegal gifts. Broidy pleaded guilty to a felony but it was later knocked down to a misdemeanor after he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and pay back $18 million in management fees.

Another scandal came last year when Broidy stepped down as deputy finance chair of the RNC after reports that he agreed to pay $1.6 million as part of a confidentiality agreement to a former Playboy model with whom he had an affair. That payment was arranged in 2017 by Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen.

In the Brooklyn federal probe, Broidy’s is the first name listed in the grand jury subpoena, followed by his Los Angeles investment firm and four limited liability companies linked to him.

It also sought records related to George Nader, a Broidy associate who served as an adviser to the United Arab Emirates, provided grand jury testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller and was recently jailed on federal child pornography charges.

Several of the names included in the subpoena also appeared in a cache of leaked emails anonymously distributed last year to several news organizations, including the AP. Broidy has contended the emails were hacked from his account, and that several of the documents were altered or forged. His attorneys declined to specify to the AP which emails they believed were doctored.

As provided to the AP, the emails show Broidy invited two Angolan leaders named in the subpoena to Trump’s inaugural, and that the invitation was accompanied by a multimillion-dollar contract for Circinus to provide security services in Angola that Broidy asked be signed ahead of the events.

In a follow-up note to one of the Angolans — then-Defense Minister and current President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço — Broidy discussed a planned visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and in the same correspondence demanded a past-due payment for Circinus’ services.

“Many preparations have been made in advance of your visit,” Broidy wrote in February 2017, “including additional meetings at the Capitol and the Department of Treasury.”

The Angolan Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

The grand jury subpoena also included several names associated with Broidy’s work on behalf of Romanian politicians at a time when Broidy’s defense company was seeking a lucrative contract to provide security services to the Romanian government — a deal Broidy’s representatives said never came to fruition.

Those names included Sorin Grindeanu, who at the time was prime minister, and Liviu Dragnea, a former parliamentary leader who began serving a 3½-year prison sentence in May for abuse of power. Both officials also attended inaugural events.

Dragnea became a focus of European Union efforts to bolster the rule of law because of his efforts to remove an anti-corruption prosecutor, Laura Kovesi, who investigated him. According to the emails obtained by the AP, Broidy tried to persuade California Republican Rep. Ed Royce, then the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, not to meet with Kovesi during a planned visit to Bucharest in 2017.

“This meeting will not only cause significant issues within the present government (but) potentially diminish the good will which we wish to achieve amongst the Romanian people,” Broidy wrote to Royce.

The emails show a Circinus lawyer, Matt Britton, resigned in October 2017 after expressing alarm to company executives about corruption concerns related to the firm’s Romanian contract negotiations.

“These are FULL STOP issues in my judgment,” the attorney wrote. “NO MATTER HOW LONG THAT TAKES IT ALL MUST BE DONE IN ADVANCE OF ANY CONTRACT WITH ROMANIA.”

Britton, who did not respond to a request for comment, is not among those named in the subpoena.

While national security experts will debate the merits of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration for years to come, one thing is clear: the pact always ensured Washington and Tehran were headed towards a nuclear crisis. The only question was when it would happen—not if.

And none of that is President Trump’s fault. In fact, we can thank President Obama for this growing international crisis – one that could even balloon into a shooting war.

IRAN ANNOUNCES IT WILL ENRICH URANIUM BEYOND NUCLEAR DEAL LIMITS

The devil is in the details of the deal itself. How it was structured, and the items that were omitted, by President Obama, Ben Rhodes and their allies, ultimately sowed the seeds of its own self-destruction.

But before I get to the deal’s flaws, I must give credit where credit is due: The deal itself was not a complete failure, in that it does do one thing quite well (albeit temporarily), and that is it does, for a long stretch of time, keep Iran’s nuclear bomb aspirations locked down. Tehran agreed to, among other things, intrusive international inspections, a cap on its uranium stockpile to 300kgs (a 98 percent reduction) and limits on uranium enrichment far below anything that can be used to make a nuclear weapon. Additionally, the path to a plutonium-based nuclear weapon is largely eliminated as well.

That’s all for the good. Before the 2015 accord was signed, Iran had enough centrifuges and nuclear material to build as many as 8 to 10 nuclear weapons, perhaps creating the first one within three months—with the potential of sparking what could be a nasty regional war with large losses of life.

Today, that timeframe has been pushed back to a year. For that, the Obama administration surely deserves praise.

Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends, in large part because the agreement itself has several massive problems that turn it from a historic and transformative accord into a giant band-aid that ensures a crisis, sooner or later.

For starters, the deal clearly leaves intact large sections of Iran’s civilian nuclear program—with the ability to still enrich nuclear fuel—intact. While credit should be given for the large restrictions put in place by Obama’s negotiating team, the problem is never truly eliminated, just scaled back.

History will show that it was President Obama’s band-aid approach to foreign policy that deserved the credit for this disaster.

And that problem will surely get worse over time, as the poison pill in the deal was always that almost all its restrictions, designed to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear bomb, expire within 12-15 years after the deal was signed. That’s right, in a little more than a decade, Iran would have been free to do whatever it wanted with its nuclear program, unless a new accord was signed.

And that’s not all. The deal itself never addresses the ways in which Iran could deliver a nuclear weapon. That means no restrictions on Iran’s quickly growing capabilities to research and develop ballistic and cruise missiles. That’s like taking a criminal’s ammo away but allowing him to keep the gun, and worse still, allowing him to build better and better guns—think long-range missiles like ICBMs that could hit the U.S. homeland or allies like Europe—while waiting to get his ammo back.

There was also no attempt in this agreement dealing with Iran’s thug-like behavior internationally. Tehran has been causing problems throughout the Middle East for decades. From screaming “death to America” and threating Israel for decades, to arming terror groups around the region and more, Iran is perhaps the ultimate of rogue nations. It is hellbent on dislodging America from the Middle East for good. And yet, none of this was addressed in the nuclear accord, nor was Iran held accountable for any of its aggressive acts throughout the region.

Taking all of that into consideration, the Trump administration was put in a terrible bind upon taking office.

Staying in the deal meant the threat posed by Iran would only grow over time, and would leave an economically powerful and rich Iran—thanks to its sales of oil and gas—with the ability to develop a nuclear arsenal shortly after Trump left office.

The other option—which it seems Trump has chosen—was to take on Tehran now, when it is much weaker, rather than leaving the problem to a future U.S. president to deal with (much like Obama did to Trump on North Korea). That meant pulling out of the deal, imposing sanctions and trying to force the issue to a head now, when America’s position is much stronger.

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What happens next is anyone’s guess. At least for the moment, Iran seems to be pushing for talks with Europe. Tehran threatened 60 days ago to abandon many of its commitments under the deal if Europe didn’t meet a deadline this weekend to somehow relieve sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. Only a week ago, Iran exceeded the cap on its stockpile of low-grade uranium. Then, to make matters worse, it said it will resume purifying uranium beyond the 3.67 percent enrichment allowed under the agreement. While it would need to get to 90 percent enrichment in order to build a nuclear weapon, all of this put together means only one thing: a showdown is coming.

Whatever happens now – whether it is a regional war in the Middle East, or a time of tense negotiations that lasts for years – it makes no rational sense to blame President Trump for a crisis with Iran. History will show that it was President Obama’s band-aid approach to foreign policy that deserved the credit for this disaster.

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