Diplomacy Or Bullets

“You talk to the most awful in order to get what you claim to be looking for: Peace.  You don’t negotiate with your friends.  You negotiate with the person you regard as your enemy.”  (Bishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa)

As Congress returns from its ill-deserved month-long recess, the most pressing issue it will take up is expressing its formal opinion on the Iran nuclear agreement negotiated this past July.  There will be many loud voices expressing a torrent of words on this subject, very little of which will reflect informed ideas from them or enlightening insight to us.  But the show must go on, and be assured that most of it will be just that – “for show.”

A number of Congresspersons expressed opposition to this pact even before the negotiations concluded, before it was formally signed and announced.  Which means they have not even bothered to read the document, and have no idea what this agreement actually says.  So when we hear these politicians say “I have been against this negotiation from the beginning” in order to appeal to their political base, they betray their own ignorance.  We should instead turn their attempted bragging back onto them and henceforth properly ignore them.

Others have been thoughtfully reading the document, asking relevant questions, listening to a variety of knowledgeable insights and opinions from objective parties.  These are the people we should seek out and listen to in order to make up our own minds.  I am most certainly far more willing to listen to an MIT physicist (now Secretary of Energy) and officials of the UN’s nuclear inspection team about the effectiveness of the agreed-upon inspection protocols than kneejerk critics such as the junior senator from Texas who opposes everything that our government attempts to do regardless of its merits.  And the overwhelming consensus within the scientific and technical community is that the inspection protocols Iran has agreed to are more than adequate to catch any breach of the agreement.  So in spite of all the rhetoric flying around about verification shortcomings, I am content with what has been agreed to.  I assume there are no more than a handful of Congresspersons technically qualified to know any more about this than I.

Then there are the folks who complain the deal only stops Iran for 15 years, and then they are free to start up new bomb making efforts.  Truth is, a lot of change can happen in 15 years.  15 years ago George W. Bush was elected president.  There was no 9-11 event, no U.S. war in the Middle East, no world-wide Great Recession.  I do not know what the world will look like 15 years from now, but I know it will be different from today: in the U.S., in Iran, in the Middle East.  All 15-year stretches end far differently than they started out – for better or worse.  I am easily willing to buy 15 years’ time to deal step-by-step with whatever new barriers and opportunities will undoubtedly arise.

Then there are those who claim we got clocked on this deal, that we gave away too much, that we should have held out for a “better deal,” that we should shut down this agreement and go back to the negotiating table.  Truth is, Donald Trump never saw a deal he did not think he could have negotiated better, and Benjamin Netanyahu never saw a deal he was willing to accept.   Biased, self-serving political critics such as these also deserve to be completely ignored in this discussion.

In our tendency towards nationalistic arrogance, we too often assume that it is all about us and what we want.  It ain’t.  Like it or not, Iran is a sovereign nation in its own right, with its own agenda and cadre of hardliners advocating for their own self-interests – just like us.  Like any country, like any negotiation, they will give up some things to get other things they deem more critical, but only up to a point.  Just as we have to do.  Unless we are willing to send in our bombs and our troops to overthrow their government and conquer their people – which we are not so willing – then we also have to give and get.  It is called “compromise” – that “C” word that Washington hates so much but which much of the rest of the country understands well.

In the end, there is no going back to the table.  For all the blustery talk, there is no better deal to be had.  Obama’s brilliant work was to create a broad coalition of nations willing to put severe economic restrictions into place, and then get an unlikely cohort of Britain / France / Russia / China to stand together with us in these negotiations.  These other nations have already agreed to this pact.  If this agreement fails in America in a misguided effort to seek a phantom “better deal,” that coalition will disappear.  The sanctions, the pressure on Iran, will never come back.  The failure will be America’s, and Iran will be free to go on its own to develop a bomb today.  Exactly what we thought was our primary priority to avoid.  America today may be the most powerful nation on earth, but like it or not, America is not powerful enough to sanction Iran into submission all by itself.   To think otherwise is to confuse American leadership with American arrogance.  So we would lose, Iran would go its separate unrestrained way, the rest of the world would move on, and Netanyahu would be left to his own scary unilateral actions.

Tom Cotton, the demonstrably freshman junior Senator from Arkansas who envisions himself as a shadow Secretary of State, will likely be a leader of the Senate challenge against the agreement.  Senate Republicans will be in unified opposition against it as a political statement rather than as an informed, measured move towards international peace.  John McCain and Lindsey Graham will once again propose sending in the troops, as they do with every international crisis.  The old guard from the Bush administration, who continually try to justify their role in creating the Iraq War and its subsequent consequences, will demonize any form of approachment with Iran.  Hopefully, all of this misguided opposition will ultimately evaporate in the cold face of pragmatic international realities.

After all the political hysteria dies down, this is a good deal versus the lack of any realistic alternatives that have been offered.  Do we trust Iran?  No, not any more than they trust us – for very good reasons given our unsavory history with them.  Is this agreement going to solve all of the issues between Iran and its neighbors and suddenly make them a good citizen of the world?  No.  But nations solve relationship problems one line-item at a time, in increments, not in overnight upside-down reversals.  This diplomatic effort was only intended to put the brakes on a nuclear Iran, not to resolve all manner of other desirable issues.  The current Agreement accomplishes what it set out to do.  We should respect that goal and celebrate its accomplishment, without the despicable rhetoric of presidential candidates, without stirring up false fears for political gain, without following false leaders both within and outside our borders.  Take the win and declare victory for today.  Tomorrow’s next difficult issues will come soon enough.  Sometimes, you just have to take a manageable risk and, as someone once sang, “give peace a chance.”

“When you have a divisive issue (e.g. Northern Ireland conflict), you do not seek “victory,” because there cannot be just one winner.  You must seek instead to be inclusive by accommodating all.”  (John Hume, Northern Ireland Catholic peace negotiator.)

©   2015   Randy Bell               www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com