By announcing the historic breakthrough for Iran to give up the nuclear bomb in exchange for the world lifting economic sanctions and freeing up $100 billion in frozen assets, President Obama said : ” This deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification…and offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it.”
The Senate now has 60 days to approve the treaty. After years of war in the Middle East including American blood and treasure, we the people, should urge our representatives to support this agreement and give peace a chance.
In the words of our beloved President John Fitzgerald Kennedy : ” We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate.” Thank you President Obama and Secretary Kerry for having the courage and wisdom to make peace.
Today, I nominate Secretary of State John Kerry for the Nobel Peace Prize. You have made us all proud to be citizens of Massachusetts, the United States and the world.
Blessed are the Peacemakers.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Founder, P.O.W.E.R. ( Progressives Organizing Wakefield to Elect Reformers )
Either back this deal, or back a future war. There is really no other option, regardless of what Netenyahu or Congressional Republicans will argue. Continuing the sanctions regime with even stricter sanctions prevents an international verification and inspections regime to pin point what material Iran has and how close they actually are. Without that intelligence, we would continue to tighten the noose around the Iranian regime making it more rather than less likely they acquire a nuclear weapon and more rather than less likely Israel or the United States will be stuck disarming Iran by force or allowing Iran to have a bomb.
Either option is unthinkable, and while the Bush administration narrowly focused on those two alternatives, the Obama administration boldly found a third option, one that disarms Iran peacefully. Whereas Iran was as close to 2-3 years away from building a bomb, it will now be closer to two decades away, with the hope that greater economic engagement with the global community will bring a future Iran closer to the West and closer to international norms of non-proliferation.
This is not a blind hope, it is based on ingenious conditions of unprecedented verification and international cooperation. Should Iran be found in violation of any of it’s agreements, the sanctions can snap back immediately.
There are downsides, the sanctions on conventional arms will be lifted much faster than I would have liked, and certainly faster than Israel or Saudi Arabia would have liked. Iran remains a state sponsor of terror, in reality and according to American policy, so we will not be exchanging ambassadors or reopening our embassy any time soon. It is unlikely our relationship can ever be as close or as mutually beneficial as it was under the Shah, nor we will likely see an opportunity for a democratic government as good as the one we foolishly overthrew in the 50s. That said, it’s a regime that has now made a rational choice at the bargaining table and will be gradually rejoining the international community and the non-proliferation community. This is a foreign policy achievement worthy of a Nobel Prize. Now onto Congress.
A final victory only occurs after Congressional passage, but unlike a regular bill, this particularly one is structures so that Congress has to affirmatively disapprove of the agreement and override Obama’s veto of their disapproval for it to be killed. It would be quite difficult, and Vox has a good primer on the specifics.
The gist is, 44 House Democrats and 13 Senate Democrats would have to join the Republicans to kill the bill. This seems unlikely, even less likely after our likely nominee, an Iran hawk, strongly endorsed the deal.