Without opening up the can of worms that is the Iran deal, you need to educate yourself a little on the logistics of how this is going down as pertains to the money issue.
We aren't writing them a check for 150 billion dollars out of the US budget. Sanctions will be lifted, and money they already have that's been frozen will released. As Cavuto from Fox Business corrects his guest
here.
Also the numbers are in serious question.
"“There is no ‘signing bonus,’ ” said Adam J. Szubin, the acting under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in
testimony about the accord on Wednesday to the Senate Banking Committee.
Mr. Szubin estimated that Iran has $100 billion to $125 billion in foreign exchange assets worldwide, but that “our assessment is that Iran’s usable liquid assets after sanctions relief will be much lower, at little more than $50 billion.”"
That snippet is from a NYT
article that actually is a pretty good run down of the varying options on the table.
The general impetus around the Iran deal wasn't between what we had before, and what we negotiated now. It was facing sanctions that may well fall apart as partners like Germany and China and Russia not really on board with continuing them, and whatever we could negotiate.
I'd have been ok either way, with the deal or without. But there are advantages and disadvantages to each of those routes. The situation as portrayed in the media is somewhat skewed, Congressmen routinely go up on Fox and indicate that Iran is making a bee line towards a nuke and will use it as fast as they can get it. The Intelligence Community debunked that myth with the 2007 NIE that was released saying Iran had stopped nuclear weapons programs in 2003. Israel has also been complaining that Iran is playing this smartly, instead of bee lining for a bomb, they are just sitting at a point where they can break out if they so chose, it allows them to be close enough without crossing over any lines. As noted, for the last 10 years or so, saying Iran was only a year away if their government decides to actually build a nuke at one point.
We haven't been arm twisting anyone to be honest. America has been rolling along thinking its a bad ass and arm twisting people, and for 10 years or more, we've basically been subject to the good will of the Ayatollah in not forcing the issue.