I joined Al Jazeera English’s Inside Story on Thursday to discuss the impact of US sanctions on Iran, not only on Tehran but also on American alliances.

The other panellists are Dr Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi of the Royal United Services Institute and Trump campaign staffer Steven Rogers.

In sometimes heated exchanges, we look at the Trump Administration’s pursuit of regime change in Iran; the response of European countries, China, and Russia; and the situation inside the Islamic Republic.

I don’t give two hoots for campaign talk. I care about political, economic, and military effects.

I’m not a big fan of Iranian foreign policy and what’s it doing in the region, for example, its support of the Assad regime in Syria.

But when we’re talking about the deal itself — it is not the “worst deal in history”. It was containing Iran’s nuclear program.

If you wanted to deal with Middle Eastern problems, you needed to take the nuclear issue off the table. By ripping up the deal — partly out of Donald Trump’s spite over Barack Obama and partly for the pursuit of regime change — you destablize the region, you don’t make it any better.