Provocative missile tests. The 'Death to America' slogan. The US needs to respond. The year since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program was announced has been a strategic windfall for Iran and a disaster for the United States. Many of the deal’s shortcomings were glaring from the beginning, yet they have been magnified by serial and gratuitous U.S. concessions to unilateral Iranian demands.

Eric S. Edelman, a veteran diplomat and policy adviser during both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, has been appointed as the next James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

The Iran debate remains in flux but its fundamentals have not changed. Some members of Congress want to filibuster, and some believe the debate must continue because the Obama administration has not met the terms of existing law by failing to provide all the necessary documentation. There is yet another set of lawmakers who support the deal with the hope that they can improve upon it after it is implemented. However Congress resolves these challenges, legislators must recognize this inescapable fact: the deal’s flaws can’t be materially ameliorated; they are deeply rooted in the agreement’s structure. To ‘fix’ the deal, Congress must reject it and force a fundamental renegotiation.

After a year of intense diplomatic negotiations, the Turkish government is now permitting the United States to use Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base, which will allow American aircraft to fly missions in Syria and Iraq with greater operational effectiveness and economic efficiency.

The agreement with Iran concedes a large enrichment capacity; short sunset clauses; a leaky verification regime; and enforcement mechanisms that are suspect.

The Obama administration says that any nuclear agreement it negotiates between the United States and Iran will be binding on the president’s successors, while nearly every Republican presidential contender has insisted on re-evaluating the agreement, if not jettisoning it all together.