Tuesday, November 26, 2013

The Iran Deal is a Good First Step

Today's good news:  we made a preliminary agreement with Iran.  They will cap their nuclear weapons program, and we will ease some of the economic sanctions.  For a time.  And then we will assess if each side held up its end.

This is exactly how diplomacy is supposed to work.

One of the most puzzling fights in the 2008 presidential election was over talking to Iran.  Sen. Obama said he was willing to sit down and talk to the Iranians to see if we could work out a deal. 

Amazingly, he was attacked by some hard-rightist.  They said we should only talk to Iran if they had already met all of our demands.  That is the kind of foolishness that guarantees war and misery, and puts the United States in the wrong from the outset.  That is the position of the Athenians in the Melian dialogue - the very model of big-power injustice.

The new Iranian deal shows the wisdom of now-President Obama's approach.