The little naval incident with Iran has been perfectly timed to sabotage Obama's last big public hurrah. Of all of Iran's post-deal power plays, this one had to have struck closest to home. It wasn't the fate of American sailors that would have worried Obama. But having his entire policy agenda upstaged by an Iranian hostage crisis.
Whatever added deal was struck for a smooth exit strategy shows how thoroughly appeasing terrorists allows them to set the agenda.
Iran may be a state, but it's a terror state and its tactics depend heavily on the old terrorist standby of negotiate and then escalate. Iran has been escalating. And Obama has been negotiating.
Obama needs Iran to prove that diplomacy works. And no doubt he'll briefly reference this latest incident in his address as proof that "diplomacy works". But diplomacy with tyrants and terrorists just creates this cycle of escalation and appeasement. Obama has to appease harder in the hopes of controlling Iran's cycle of escalation to prove that his diplomatic approach was right. This just increases Iran's escalation and his appeasement. Eventually blame for the cycle has to be dumped on someone else. Israel. Or, these days, Saudi Arabia. Tom Cotton. Republicans. Somebody. Anybody.