Iran and six major powers agreed early Sunday on a historic deal that freezes key parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for temporary relief on some economic sanctions.
The agreement, sealed at a 3 a.m. signing ceremony in Geneva’s Palace of Nations, requires Iran to halt or scale back parts of its nuclear infrastructure, the first such pause in more than a decade.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hailed the deal, which was reached after four days of hard bargaining, including an eleventh-hour intervention by Secretary of State John F. Kerry and foreign ministers from Europe, Russia and China.
Which means that Iran’s nuclear program will continue on schedule. I wonder which country’s capital will get the frist Iranian nuclear weapon?
I am reading William Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill, and by coincidence am at the part covering the infamous Munich agreement with Hitler. The players and issues are different, but there is a chilling similarity to the frantic efforts to accept [b]anything[/b] rather than live up to obligations and do something. The response of the press, what we could call the MSM today, was no better.
Chamberlain.
The Munich analogy, which has been raised frequently against diplomatic initiatives, is not really applicable. There was not diplomacy at Munich. Chamberlain just stood aside and let Hitler have what he wanted, in return for a vague promise not to take any more. In contrast, we have been waging economic war, and threatening military war, against Iran for decades. This agreement embodies real and verifiable concessions by Iran, in return for being treated with some respect by us. America has much to gain if Iran, a Shia power, assumes a larger role in the mid-East, as a counterweight to the Sunni powers which include Al Queda.
Re #4
+ 1/2
It has sadly reached the point where every diplomatic initiative with someone seen as hostile to the US, in some cases legitimately so, gets pegged as another Munich. That is foolish and shortsighted. On the other hand, Iran is a country that has been behind a lot of mischief in the word including the promotion of terrorism. Further it has repeatedly threatened the destruction of another member state of the international community.
It is not out of line to point this out and advise a very cautious approach.
Re #5
True, and I do think caution is advised. Caution is also advisable regarding the rhetoric of the neo-conservative war party. They have pushed for us to bomb Iran for years. They exaggerate Iran’s (real) evils while neglecting to mention that the US and Brittan engineered the overthrow and killing of a popular Iranian president in the 1950s. The US and Israel apparently have more recently conducted deadly clandestine operations inside Iran, usually through terrorist proxies. If another country had done these things to us, I think we would be looking to take hostile action. Yet, despite the hostility, many Iranian people took to the streets to show sympathy to us after 9/11. In contrast, there was cheering in the streets of Sunni countries.
Some statements are self-authenticating. Some are self-refuting. “America has much to gain if Iran, a Shia power, assumes a larger role in the mid-East…” is the the second category.