Foreign Policy and the Not-Nuclear Option

Yesterday, a deal was announced that, for the time being, loosens US-Iran sanctions so long as Iran demonstrates that they are drawing down their nuclear program. So far, so good. Enrichment is frozen at its present level. The bulk of sanctions are preserved. The right to enrich isn't referred to--but the international community shouldn't have any business dictating Iran's energy policy, anyway, even if there is a vested interest in curtailing any weapons program. It isn't a bad deal.  I would say there is reason to call it a step in the right direction--as in, if the status quo was uncertain, and this points a way to being more sure Iran is doing what we'd like--and they see that there is an economic benefit in doing that, it is more likely they will not develop nukes because they have no particular compelling interest in doing so. Which was kind of what they were saying anyway, but let's leave that alone.

I freely admit I'm not a foreign policy expert, just an enthusiast. I like what I see from the Obama Administration's foreign policy because it baffles the fuck out of simple-minded people: his team actually treats different situations on a case-by-case basis without using any made-up doctrine to dictate how they will respond to emerging situations. This actually strikes me as being totally appropriate and not-at-all amature. Unlike the Bush Doctrine fans of the last Admin, they run the terrifying risk of getting things right and avoiding war more often--while retaining the scary option of sometimes talking things out. I can see why this leaves war-fanboys white-knuckled and heaving. If the possibility of war as a first, last, and only case scenario is ever-present in your playbook, you might have reason to want it over with.

If, on the other hand, you're committed to it as a definitely last and only eventual resort, you might feel really relieved to take it off the table. And that's how it ought to be done, I think. War is a kind of failure to do anything better than war. People who prefer it strike me as being unaware that war would only be desireable if used to divert something worse than war, and there's rarely anything worse. Not never. But rarely.


Although I'm no foreign policy expert, I like to think I understand politics and the media (and the intersection thereof) a bit. It's sort of my main hobby. I must note that my Rumproast colleague Bette Noir has covered the absurdity of the kneejerk dismissive GOP response, and my fellow colleague Marindenver annihilated the actually stupid core of the complaint, to wit:

The tweet from lead jerk, TX Sen. John Cornyn:

And the annihilation thereof:

Yes, and apparently France, Germany, Great Britain, China and Russia are equally concerned about deflecting attention from Obamacare so they went along with the U.S. on this.  What a moran.

Of course the various nations had no investment in President Obama's good press to finagle such a deal, and rather more investment in controlling nuclear proliferation. But I will note that this did not stop seasoned CBS journalistic hand Bob Schieffer from making this exact same, completely stupid and ill-founded, speculation:


And in the presence of someone who would concur because duh. Our media is a shambles and this is partly why our politics are so bad. Retire, Schieffer. But on the whole, I'm glad our media hasn't the fucking least idea about foreign policy, because they might then cover how the Obamacare website is doing better and enrollments are definitely up. And also, in the real world, we've stepped down froma war with Iran. So yay all around.