What? This is utterly incoherent. Is there a point? If so….what is it?

Haven’t read the Samuels piece, just learning of it now. However, given this description:
The problem is that the story is so oddly constructed that it isn’t
clear whether (1) Samuels just likes to summarize in his own words or
(2) has put together a collage of his own views and quotations that
don’t really support them — but in a way that sort of makes it look
like they’re talking about the same thing. I don’t know. And there’s no
way to tell.

…I infer that the piece is horrible, sub-standard journalism.

On the Iran deal: not all that many people had/have the technical expertise to evaluate the ‘quality’ of the Iran deal re the nuclear details. I certainly don’t. One had to choose which nuclear experts to believe/trust. Most of them seemed to support it, though it wasn’t unanimous.

And I think *one* aim, call it a secondary one if you like but definitely there, was to begin a thawing of relations w Iran. Though my impression is that even a casual observer cd tell that that was going to be a glacially slow process and that the U.S. was not going to begin “disentangling” from Saudi Arabia anytime soon. And afaict it hasn’t.

Item: Saudi Arabia uses/used U.S.-supplied weapons to kill civilians in Yemen (either intentionally or, more likely, via what amts to criminal negligence). Asked about this, U.S. officials and/or commenters close to them give mealy-mouthed responses along the lines of (1)not sure US weapons involved in particular incident X; (2) US not involved in targeting; (3) (ill-trained) Saudi pilots flying too high. Etc. But iirc no US official criticized in any incisive and strong way the Saudi air campaign in Yemen. So much for “disentangling.”