Amid nuclear talks, Obama shifts policy closer to Iran’s

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“A broader deal with Iran is what matters,” Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies who has written extensively on Iran's role in the Middle East, told the Washington Examiner.

Not only has the Obama administration not done anything to roll back Iranian influence in the region, but it has forged tacit alliances with Iranian-backed and Iranian-influenced government structures — first in Lebanon, then in Iraq — to fight Sunni Muslim extremist groups such as the Islamic State, and the administration is hoping to do the same in Syria, he said.

The administration has supported and shared intelligence with Lebanese armed forces in spite of them being heavily under the influence of Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy that is considered a terrorist organization by Washington, he said.

“It has become the template that the Obama administration is following in the region,” Badran said.

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