TY Solomon appears to think Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran was "a major accomplishment and helped to bring down tensions..." (“Healthcare good, foreign policy less so … still he related to ordinary people”, The Herald, January 16). I beg to differ. In fact when Mr Obama exits the White House tomorrow, he will leave behind a shocking legacy of death and destruction in the Middle East.

Mr Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and his concessions to that ruthless regime have not only threatened the security of the Middle East, but have even undermined the interests of the United States. His failure to back the Syrian opposition has allowed the bloody civil war in that country to rage on into its seventh year, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and sparking the huge migration crisis in Europe.

Following the nuclear deal, a sum of $150 billion of frozen assets was released to Iran, providing a windfall for the Tehran government, which was teetering on the brink of economic collapse. But far from investing in its own beleaguered people, the fascist mullah-led regime used this money to redouble its spending on exporting terror through the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Quds Force, both of which are listed terrorist organizations in the West and are involved in almost every conflict in the Middle East. As well as Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Yemen's Houthi rebels, Iran funds and supplies Hezbollah in Lebanon and the brutal Shi'ia militias in Iraq.

Despite repeated warnings, Mr Obama began his administration by capitulating to Iranian demands to back the corrupt and murderous Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister in Iraq. Mr Maliki was a puppet of the mullahs, doing their bidding by opening a direct route for Iranian troops and equipment heading to Syria to bolster the murderous Assad regime. Iran's support for Mr Maliki in Iraq and for Mr Assad in Syria, two corrupt dictators who repressed and brutalised their own people, resulted in the rise of Islamic State (IS).

Mr Obama compounded this grievous mistake by providing American military support and air cover for the genocidal campaign being waged by pro-Iranian Shi'ia militias in Iraq. Once again Iran exploited its role in ousting IS as a means for implementing its ruthless policy of ethnic cleansing to annihilate the Sunnis in Iraq's al-Anbar Province. Horrific sectarian atrocities were committed during the so-called "liberation" of the ancient cities of Fallujah and Ramadi and the same thing is now happening in Mosul. Political disarray in Baghdad, combined with Mr Obama's directionless and dysfunctional American foreign policy, has paved the way for Iran relentlessly to strengthen its grip in Iraq.

President Trump will have the unenviable task of trying to sort out Mr Obama's Middle East mess. It will be interesting to see if Mr Trump can slam the lid back down on the mullahs' aggressive expansionism.

Struan Stevenson,

Ballantrae, Ayrshire.