U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday he hoped "in the next days" it would be possible to reach an interim deal with Iran if Tehran can show that its nuclear power program is for peaceful purposes only.
Yes, I'm sure an agreement is possible.
He has already told Iran we are willing to pretend to believe Iran does not want nuclear weapons.
Now all he has to do is convince Iran to convincingly pretend they don't want nuclear weapons.
Voila! Simplisme, no?
Lord knows it would be all treason-like to interfere with high level negotiations like that!
I've long preferred regime change (and we ignored the possibilities for that in 2009 as Iranians took to the streets to protest their government), but have accepted that a war to stop Iran's nuclear drive even for a little while is better than just accepting Iran's nuclear status.
Buying time is better than doing nothing--even if nothing is dressed up like a deal. War may be our only option now:
National security adviser Susan Rice declared at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference before Netanyahu’s speech that “a bad deal is worse than no deal.” So if Iran will accept only a “bad deal,” what is President Obama’s alternative? War?
Quite. Why would Iran agree to a deal if it interferes with their nuclear weapons ambitions. If that hasn't occurred to you, you may be part of our negotiating team that is solid on our "pretending" part.
Sadly, war doesn't buy as much time now as it did in the past. Bombing when Iran's nuclear program was in an earlier stage would have set it back more than a bombing campaign now, since the knowledge base is broader and can rebuild the physical things broken more easily.
And we can't know how much of Iran's nuclear program is in North Korea or other countries (as it was in Syria before Israel bombed that North Korean reactor in 2007).
Does anybody really want to rest our hopes for peace on John Kerry's negotiating prowess?
He thinks being for something before he was against it--or perhaps the other way around?--is brilliant! (It's like he negotiates with himself!)
Although what if we insisted that Israel has the sole authority to determine if Iran is abiding by the agreement?
And Israel gets our blessing for strikes or another option?
Nah! Where's the nuance in that? It might even be effective enough to deny Kerry a Nobel Peace Prize! Can't risk that, now, can he?
Have a super sparkly day.
