The Iran Nuclear Deal Lives
Roger Cohen is, in my opinion, the most interesting New York Times columnist because he (along with Paul Krugman) thinks outside the box. He was in the streets in Iran during the post-election uprising whose cause it was clear he supported.
His contempt for the Iranian ruling class has not led him to contempt for the Iranian people. On the contrary, he has faith that they will, on their own, change or dismantle this regime.
He also understands that the one thing that would solidify support for the regime on the part of all Iranians would be an Israeli or an American attack on Iran's nuclear sites.
Even the strongest opponents of the regime believe Iran has the same right to nuclear development as any other country in the world. As for nuclear weapons, there is little evidence that Iran is pursuing them but, even if there was, the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to which Iran is a signatory spells out its rights and obligations. It is no big surprise that the Iranians believe it is hypocritical that Israel, which has refused to sign the NPT, is cheerfully allowed to possess 200 nuclear bombs while any evidence that Iran is enriching uranium even at levels well under what is needed to create a weapon is treated like the end of the world.
Anyway, today in this column, Roger Cohen interviews Mohammed ElBaradei, in his last month as chief of the International Atomic Energy Commission. ElBaradei believes that the United States and Iran are close to an agreement on the whole nuclear issue and that both sides should move quickly to wrap it up (especially with the Israelis threatening an attack by Christmas that would both fail and embroil the world in war).
The neocons want an Israeli strike rather than the prospect of any deal with Iran that would both prevent war and provide for US recognition of the Islamic Republic. They prefer a war that would solidify support in Iran for the regime to a nuclear deal that could well cause it to unravel. But they won't get this war or even the sanctions they are dying to impose on the Iranian people.
Nonetheless, vigilance is the price we must pay to prevent another neocon engineered catastrophe. These guys still have one war left in them (well, not in them exactly, but in the people they dispatch to fight). When will this cursed philosophy disappear back into the pages of Commentary magazine, from which it first reared its simultaneously bloodthirsty and cowardly head?
NOTE: Commentary used to be the monthly of the American Jewish Committee. The AJC recently produced this insipid (and pure neocon) video about Iran that needs to be seen.
