Scott McConnell dares suggest that the Iran deal my serve US interests in the Middle East, from American Conservative, via davidstockmanscontracorner.com:
If Iran’s nuclear program were the primary concern of those lamenting the deal that John Kerry and representatives of five major countries concluded with Iran last Tuesday, they would be relatively pleased. Under the agreement, Iran will be stripped of 98 percent of its enriched uranium, all of its plutonium producing capacity, and 2/3 of its centrifuges, and will be placed under the most rigorous inspection regime in the history of nuclear proliferation negotiations. The cartoon image of Iran racing toward the bomb—presented last year by Prime Minister Netanyahu at the United Nations—may not have been reality-based, but if that’s what Israel is worried about, it can relax. Iran will not be racing toward the bomb.
But of course Israel is not pleased at all, and many of its volunteer spokesmen and politicians in the United States are railing against the deal as virtually the worst thing to happen in history. Netanyahu has let no one outdo him in hysteria. Iran is seeking to “take over the world,” he told an Israeli audience last week. (As the leaders of Russia, China, France, Germany, and Britain signed onto the agreement, one wonders how they all managed to miss the world takeover threat Netanyahu sees so clearly.)
To continue reading: How the Iran Deal Serves America’s Interest
Lucy Steigerwald dares suggest that Iran may have reasons of its own to distrust and dislike the United States, from antiwar.org:
Last week, much of the US seemed to wring its hands over the US government’s deal with Iran over their nuclear program. The hysterical reaction from potential 2016 candidates to a mixed, but fairly positive solution to this crisis – most of them came out against the deal before it was released – was entirely predictable, but still disturbing. Would-be cautious folks like Sen. Rand Paul appear to have gone full hawk in reaction to the terms. It’s grim.
However, even if mega-interventions like Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol or Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz are actually itching for war, most people aren’t this bad. They may just be afraid of an alien, foreign culture that they have heard is aggressive. They may just wish for an Iran that is robotically subservient to American interests without having to go to the trouble of an invasion or even a subtle coup. People want an Iran that they don’t have to understand or empathize with because it is just like us.
That could be swell. Just imagine an Iran that recognized human rights and individual freedoms as much as America tells itself it does when it goes to sleep at night. America tells itself other bedtime stories about Iran – scary ones about 1979, about Iran exporting terrorism, or about cries of “death to America.” But it has forgotten how other tales go. Namely, the one about the 1953 coup of a democratically-elected leader. One which lead Iran on a path towards its theocratic revolution – and the storming of the American embassy – in ‘79. Or the one about the Iranian passenger plane shot down by a US warship in 1988. America doesn’t remember how the US helped ally Saddam Hussein find Iranian troops, knowing full well they would be attacked with chemical weapons.
There is only limited RAM on America’s computer. There is room for fears of Iran going nuclear. Iran threatening Israel. Iran hating Jews. Not an Iran that – theocratic and unfree though it is as a nation – contains a Jewish population that is free to worship and to work most jobs. A population that was never forced to leave, as the Jews of US ally Egypt were in the 1950s.
And certainly not an Iran that has a real need for nuclear medicine, no matter how suspicious the US finds that fact. Nor an Iran whose nuclear program began in the 1950s, thanks to the American Atoms for Peace. Forget an Iran which, again, is quite unfree domestically, but does not oppress its women to the extent that US ally Saudi Arabia does.
Never mind that sanctions are supposed to be a way for America to get what it wants from Iran, or that sanctions themselves are an act of war. One which punishes the poorest people of any country. Did Cuba suddenly embrace human rights after five decades of US sulking? It did not. Why not then try a tactic of friendship, trade, and most frightening – actual trust?
Because most of all, America has no space to admit that Iran has a fantastically valid reason to distrust America and Israel. America overthrew their government in a coup. It shot down a passenger plane. It helped perpetuate chemical attacks on the country. Had any one of those things been done to America by another nationstate, that place would be overthrown and invaded at the very least.
To continue reading: America’s Limited Space for Iran Stories
