It’s no secret that America’s Gulf allies feel the U.S. hasn’t done nearly enough to counter Iran’s ambitions in the region. (The fact that Obama seems to hold out hope that a deal could help rehabilitate Iran both regionally and internationally doesn’t help matters.) Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries opted to launch a destructive intervention in Yemen, at tremendous human cost, in part because of fears of U.S. disengagement and nervousness over U.S. policy toward Iran. As Ken Pollack recently testified to Congress: “In private, [Gulf Cooperation Council] officials make no bones in saying that they felt compelled to [intervene in Yemen] because the United States was embracing Iran rather than deterring or defeating it.” U.S. officials, despite having major qualms about the intervention, had little interest in picking a fight with Saudi Arabia over Yemen, when they were already expending their political capital to reassure the Saudis about the Iran negotiations.

Then there’s Syria. It was clear from the start of that country’s uprising that Obama did, in fact, have a clear objective: minimizing U.S. involvement as much as possible. But there are other places, such as Iraq, where the Obama administration was pulled back despite (or, more likely, because of) its best efforts. The administration’s unwillingness to rethink its Syria strategy in any serious way was reinforced by the momentum of the Iran negotiations. Why potentially provoke a major international incident when progress was being made on Iran’s nuclear program? Why even take the chance with so much at stake? “Linkage,” moreover, was built into the policy process. As the journalist Josh Rogin noted, “All Syria proposals at State must go through the office of the undersecretary for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, who is also the administration’s lead negotiator over a nuclear deal with Iran.”

On the specifics of the deal, I tend to think, like many, that the U.S. made too many concessions without getting enough in return. According to The New York Times, in the final days of talks, a television anchor on a hardline Iranian channel said, “The fact is, Obama needs this deal much more than we do.” She went on: “The American president needs a victory, and only a deal with Iran can give him that. They have retreated on several issues and compromised on their own red lines.” Whether or not this perception is fair, it’s a perception nonetheless, and perceptions drive behavior.

Others have noted that Iran, due to its deteriorating economy, needed a deal more than the United States did. This is almost certainly true. But while Iran may have needed it more, the U.S. wanted it more—or, at the very least, seemed like it did. Some of this, to be fair, was outside America’s control. Well before the talks concluded, a perception had already solidified throughout the region based on six years of observing the Obama administration’s handling of various crises, most notably its backing down from stated “red lines” in Syria. Allies, such as Egypt, and enemies, such as Syria, have grown confident that the United States will blink first in a staring contest, in part because the U.S. usually does. The administration has had a tendency to misuse and/or underestimate its leverage in some of its most important bilateral relationships.

There was a related asymmetry during the negotiations. As Pollack writes, “I don’t think that Iran values a nuclear deal as much as it does its positions in these various countries.” With the United States, it was the reverse: The Obama administration cared less about Iran’s positions in various countries and more about its nuclear program. This, too, was built into the talks.