Iran policy is more politically charged than most matters in international affairs because of the Islamic Republic’s foundational hostility to the United States and its ally Israel, Tehran’s support for proxy militant groups, and the bitter partisan divide over Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal. Many on the right cheered Trump’s withdrawal from that pact and his reimposition of suffocating economic sanctions on Iran. But more recently, some have spoken out against the president’s retreat from military action in response to Iranian provocations (recalling his predecessor’s decision to pull back from enforcing his “red line” on chemical-weapons use in Syria), as well as his expressed openness to meeting with Iranian leaders without preconditions and to providing some economic relief to them in pursuit of a nuclear agreement (again à la Obama). Those critics include his former Republican presidential challenger Ted Cruz and, reportedly, his just-departed national security adviser John Bolton.

Read: Bolton’s departure signals Trump’s foreign-policy pivot

A meeting next week between the U.S. and Iranian presidents at the United Nations General Assembly in New York seems off the table for now, particularly after the attack on a Saudi oil facility that both the Trump administration and the kingdom are attributing to Iran. But how Trump responds next could open him up to more criticism from his party. If that backlash comes, it would be remarkable, after Republicans have given him an out on so many other things:

Pretty much every element of Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea.

Obama set off Republicans and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during his first presidential campaign by pledging to meet unconditionally with the leaders of adversarial countries. His political opponents later pilloried him for appeasing America’s authoritarian enemies in seeking to constrain Iran’s nuclear program and reconcile with Cuba.

Imagine the uproar if Obama had held a splashy summit with Kim Jong Un in return for no substantive concessions on North Korea’s nuclear-weapons arsenal—let alone if he had done that three times, as Trump has, including the first presidential foray into North Korean territory. What if Obama had gushed about how he “fell in love” with North Korea’s dictator? Or unabashedly taken the totalitarian leader’s side in disputes with a former American vice president and the president’s own national security adviser? Or absolved Kim of responsibility for the death of an American college student in North Korean captivity? Or castigated the CIA for cultivating Kim’s half brother as an intelligence asset? Or, while we’re at it, saluted a North Korean general? (See: the various controversies surrounding Obama’s bows to U.S. partners such as the Saudi king and Japanese emperor.)