This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, February 3rd, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Iran Nuclear Deal created a favorable security environment for the United States

and other countries around the globe?

So why does it appear that the Trump administration is trying to blow it up?

John Glazer, Associate Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute,

discusses why the Bellicose Talk looks like all downside and no upside.

The Iran nuclear deal was signed by Iran, the United States, and five other nations, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany.

It imposed really stringent controls on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Now since it was signed, Iran has reduced its stockpile of centrifuges by two-thirds.

It's got rid of 95% of its enriched uranium, and it's begun converting major enrichment

sites into peaceful research centers.

The Iranian nuclear program right now is the most intensely monitored nuclear program in the world.

Inspectors from the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, are there every single month monitoring

all related facilities.

So the Iranian nuclear program has been significantly rolled back and sanctions have been partially lifted to the point where people can start trading with Iran.

This is a really favorable strategic environment for the Trump administration to inherit.

And yet with National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's statement the other day,

they appear to have chosen to make a big controversy and stir up tensions with Iran over relatively innocuous issues.

And you know he used language like we're putting Iran on notice.

He described their ballistic missile test

as threatening and alarming.

...