Why Has President Obama Taken so Long to Respond to Reports of Russian Hacking? Blame the Iran Deal

“If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act?” So asked President-elect Donald Trump last Thursday morning. The question, asked also by many of Trump’s Democratic adversaries, is a good one. If, as recent news reports indicate, the Obama administration knew all along that Russia was involved in hacking and releasing private Democratic communications in order to affect the recent U.S. election, why didn’t the administration do something to make them stop? The answer, writes Noah Rothman, has everything to do with President Obama’s desire to protect his legacy, a legacy “bound up in the Iran nuclear deal.”