Obama pulled it off because Iran had significant geopolitical leverage and he wasn't dumb enough to confront them with direct escalatory military action (he still used Stuxnet) like Trump was.

He had no issues carpet bombing Afghanistan because they didn't have any military power that could oppose the USA.

Even for Trump, the real deviation from the standard Uncle Sam treatment was this year's crapshow. Last year's operation midnight hammer could have happened under any president for the past 3 decades and no one would've blinked an eye.