The deal that seems to be taking shape right now does not fill me – or many others who support a diplomatic solution to this crisis — with confidence. Reports suggest that the prospective agreement will legitimate Iran’s right to enrich uranium (a “right” that doesn’t actually exist in international law); it will allow Iran to maintain many thousands of operating centrifuges; and it will lapse after ten or 15 years, at which point Iran would theoretically be free to go nuclear. (The matter of the sunset clause worries me, but I’m more worried that the Iranians will find a way to cheat their way out of the agreement even before the sun is scheduled to set.)
Obama’s greatest argument against Netanyahu is simple, and dispositive: The Israelis have not offered a better solution to the Iranian challenge. But the fact that Netanyahu has no actual ideas – other than strategies that lead to endless sanctions of diminishing effectiveness and bombing runs of similarly dubious long-term effectiveness — does not absolve the Obama Administration of its responsibility to secure the toughest deal possible.
This is a very dangerous moment for Obama, and for the world. He has made many promises, and if fails to keep them – if he inadvertently (or, God forbid, advertently) sets Iran on the path to the nuclear threshold, he will be forever remembered as the president who sparked a nuclear arms race in the world’s most volatile region, and for breaking a decades-old promise to Israel that the U.S. would defend its existence and viability as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
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