Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (R) makes a statement as European Union High Representative
for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini watches, following nuclear talks
at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
The
blowhards,
cranks,
war criminals,
know-nothings and self-appointed spokesgroups of
"America's No. 1 ally" haven't stopped their foaming cries in the wake of Thursday's announcement that an "understanding" had been reached between the world's major powers and Iran regarding the latter's nuclear program. No doubt many whiskeys were angrily downed by the bloodthirsty crowd that thinks Iran's keeping enough centrifuges to supply uranium fuel for making electricity equates with letting the Third Reich march into the Sudentenland three quarters of a century ago.
For the moment, however, diplomacy seems to have trumped the warmongering.
But, as President Obama said in the Rose Garden yesterday, "Our work is not yet done." It took 18 months of multilateral negotiating to create the "understanding" about what the eventual agreement to curtail Iran's nuclear program and lift the economic sanctions will look like. Now comes the filling in of the details. Therein lie many obstacles and pitfalls that the hardliners in both camps will do their utmost to create or exacerbate between now and the June 30 deadline.
The editorial boards of America's five best-known newspapers showed where they will stand as this process unfolds.
None found room in their opinions to discuss what should, what must, be the longer-term goal, the one that President Reagan and President Obama each supported—reducing all the world's nuclear arsenals eventually to zero (though each in practice made moves to upgrade and modernize those arsenals). And neither did any editorial board comment on making the Middle East itself a nuclear-free zone. That would, of course, require Israel, the only nation in the region with nuclear weapons—built secretly with secret Western assistance—to acknowledge that arsenal and dismantle it.
As usual, it's best to read the entire editorials rather than just the excerpts. Let's start with the naysayers at The Washington Post, "Obama’s Iran deal falls far short of his own goals":
THE “KEY parameters” for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran’s nuclear facilities—including the Fordow center buried under a mountain—will be closed. Not one of the country’s 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be “reduced” but not necessarily shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, though some of it will be mothballed for 10 years. When the accord lapses, the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state.
Anyone who thinks that "negotiations" should amount to the United States laying out its demands and the other side laying down and saying "yes, sir" is living in another century.
Before going below the fold to see what other leading editorial boards have to say, please join us in signing this petition in support of the understanding with Iran.
The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial board was indulging in chest-thumping foreign policy ejaculations long before Rupert Murdoch showed up, was skeptical but kept itself toned-down pretty much in "Obama’s Iran ‘Framework’. Details to be disclosed, and even negotiated, later," but also published a hyperventilating wack piece by Peggy Noonan:
The fundamental question posed by President Obama’s Iran diplomacy has always been whether it can prevent a nuclear-armed Middle East—in Iran as well as Turkey and the Sunni Arab states. Mr. Obama unveiled a “framework” accord on Thursday that he said did precisely that, but the claims warrant great skepticism, not least because they come with so many asterisks. [...]
All this would be somewhat reassuring if the U.S. were negotiating a nuclear deal with Holland or Costa Rica—that is, a law-abiding state with no history of cheating on nuclear agreements. But that’s not Iran.
The editorial board of
The New York Times, which acquitted itself poorly in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, called it
"A Promising Nuclear Deal With Iran" and went on at considerable length to explain why:
There is good reason for skepticism about Iran’s intentions. Although it pledged not to acquire nuclear weapons when it ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1970, it pursued a secret uranium enrichment program for two decades. By November 2013, when serious negotiations with the major powers began, Iran was enriching uranium at a level close to bomb-grade.
However, Iran has honored an interim agreement with the major powers, in place since January 2014, by curbing enrichment and other major activities.
By opening a dialogue between Iran and America, the negotiations have begun to ease more than 30 years of enmity. Over the long run, an agreement could make the Middle East safer and offer a path for Iran, the leading Shiite country, to rejoin the international community. [...]
Talking to adversaries—as President Ronald Reagan did in nuclear weapons negotiations with the Soviets and President Richard Nixon did in his opening to China—is something American leaders have long pursued as a matter of practical necessity and prudence.
Yet in today’s poisonous political climate, Mr. Obama’s critics have gone to extraordinary lengths to undercut him and any deal. Their belligerent behavior is completely out of step with the American public, which overwhelmingly favors a negotiated solution with Iran, unquestionably the best approach.
My former colleagues on the editorial board of the
Los Angeles Times took the same view but far more briefly in
"Give the Iran nuclear deal a chance":
Trusting Iran is a gamble. No one should forget that in the past, it has been deceptive about its nuclear activities. Just last month, the director-general of the IAEA complained that Iran had answered only one of a dozen inquiries about the "possible military dimensions" of its nuclear program. Given Iran's past evasions, it's important that there be a robust monitoring and verification system, and the preliminary agreement is encouraging in that respect.
In welcoming it, Obama said he accepted that Congress could play a useful "oversight role" but warned that "if Congress kills this deal not based on expert analysis, and without offering any reasonable alternative, then it's the United States that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy. International unity will collapse, and the path to conflict will widen."
We hope those words will be pondered by those members of Congress who have reflexively opposed any possible deal and who may be tempted to sabotage the negotiations. They should also take seriously another point made by the president: that the alternative to a diplomatic agreement is that "we can bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, thereby starting another war in the Middle East and setting back Iran's program by a few years." The details of a final agreement matter, but so does the alternative.
And finally, the editorial board at the national newspaper with the largest circulation,
USA Today, did its best to have it both ways in
"Deal offers chance to ease Iran's nuclear threat: Our view":
If a final deal is concluded in June (still no certainty given continuing differences over important details), Iran would be required to close or limit its key nuclear facilities. It would also have to reduce its stocks of nuclear fuel and the centrifuges used to make it. All this would occur under the watch of intrusive international inspections.
That would be an extraordinary achievement, easing one of the world's most intractable problems. But it would come at high cost.
Once Iran complies, it would be freed from the crippling economic sanctions that brought it to the table, filling the Islamic Republic's coffers with funds that would surely be used to further destabilize the Middle East. [...]
To all of the critics, the details—short of a capitulation that's incompatible with the concept of negotiation—don't matter. They prefer the aggressive confrontation of Iran's ambitions across the region, with deep U.S. involvement and a high risk of war.
Capitulation is, of course, exactly what certain people have demanded in exchange for not sending the missiles and fight-bombers to their targets in Iran.