President Obama unveiled what is likely the crowning foreign policy achievement of his presidency a few weeks ago when the U.S., along with international negotiators, reached a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program.
However, in Congress, this news was not received quite so fondly. At the end of July, Congress held hearings regarding the deal that quickly dwindled into nothing more than blatant political theater.
The reasoning behind this is clear: Republicans don’t want to give President Obama control of the foreign policy debate so close to the election.
While I can understand how politics may affect the decision to reopen relations with Cuba or how we specifically deal with the threat of the Islamic State or Iraq and Syria — both of which are nuanced issues and don’t appear to pose an imminent threat if current policy persists — the threat of nuclear war seems like a dangerous political tool.
Without a deal, experts said they believed Iran is within three months of being able to build a nuclear weapon. This means the only alternative to a nuclear Iran without a deal is immediate war. Though such an action may appeal to the few warmongering leaders in the Republican Party — here’s looking at you, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina — most Americans would admit war is not a desirable outcome.
So here comes the deal. Is it perfect? No. Then again, a negotiator who submits to the demands of only one party isn’t much of a negotiator.
We have to remember the U.S. has to balance the interests of the other international powers and the U.S. also needed to make sure the Iranians could save what little face they could to make sure it was supported by their people.
This deal blocks the main pathways to a bomb, gives us greater transparency and, as nuclear nonproliferation expert Aaron Stein explained, “it makes the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon in the next 25 years extremely remote.”
Even if Iran is able to sneak around small parts of the deal, even if they are able to gain more leverage in the region, and even if they begin to pursue weapons once the deal ends — and that is a lot of “ifs” — it still delays their operation and gives the international community more access and information. This deal may not be perfect, but it’s the best alternative we have. And how do Congressional Republicans and presidential hopefuls respond?
They go on a rampage of accusations, name calling and denunciation, even before they had read the deal.
This shows the Republican leaders don’t fully understand the gravity of the situation — if they did, they would at least have read the deal before denouncing it and treated the hearings with the respect they merited.
And if we can’t even expect them to govern responsibly on the most obvious of national security decisions, how can we trust them to govern the nuances?
thompjak@indiana.edu
