The Iran Deal

The Iran nuclear arms deal announced this morning is the result of a multi-party negotiation, including the European Union, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the U.N., not just Iran and the U.S.

It boils down to an arms limitation agreement.  It may not be a panacea, but it beats any other alternative, including the status quo of economic sanctions.  Such is the nature of a negotiation -- there are never any iron-clad guarantees (any promise can be broken), just steps in the right direction.  This deal limits Iran's nuclear weapons capability, and that's a good thing.

The GOP and Fox News will predictably howl that the sky is falling, and they'll try to pick the fly shit out of the pepper.  "The deal's not perfect!" they'll cry.  "Look at this!  And that!  We insist on Utopia or nothing!"  John McCain will start singing "Bomb-Bomb Iran" again, and his personal remora, Lindsey Graham, may join him.  Over in Israel, Bibi will turn purple with rage.

The critics will be loud but wrong.  They'll conveniently forget that many U.S. presidents, including Nixon and Reagan, succesfully negotiated arms reductions with the Soviet Union, at the time our sworn enemy.  Those deals weren't perfect either, but they made us safer by degrees.  The critics will fail to recall that even George Dubya Bush wanted to negotiate a nuclear arms deal with Iran -- part of his "Axis of Evil" -- and offered to do so, but Iran refused to talk.

Of course, the conservatives' real issue with today's Iran deal is they didn't do it.  It's just plain old sour grapes.  If this agreement had been reached by a Republican president, they'd be lovin' it!

But because they wouldn't do it, couldn't do it, didn't do it, because it was Obama who pulled it off, because Obama is their real enemy even more than Iran is, well, they're just gonna have to do everything they can to destroy the agreement and the president.

They've had plenty of practice over the past six and a half years.  Good luck with that.