The
terms of the agreement framework between the great powers and Iran were more
balanced between the two sides and stronger than expected in the agreed upon
controls over Iran=s nuclear
development. But the responses were predictable. The Republicans went on the attack as they
were expected to do on any proposal, of lack of one, which might have been the
result of the negotiations. And, the Democrats tepidly and often with lack of
enthusiasm supported the agreement negotiated by their past Presidential
candidate John Kerry on behalf of their twice elected President Barack Obama.
History
shows us that the immediate reaction to an international agreement is sometimes
different than the ultimate historical opinion. When the Webster-Ashburton treaty with Great
Britain was signed in 1842, Americans thought it was a momentary thawing of
relations with the United Kingdom and settling of the Canadian border. History shows that it was the beginning of
almost two hundred years of close cooperation between the three nations
involved - the US, Britain and Canada.
When
Teddy Roosevelt negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 it was hailed as historic and he was awarded
the Nobel Prize. Within a decade both
countries were involved, albeit on the same side initially, in World War I and
the ending of the earlier war had few if any ramifications.
In
1919 President Woodrow Wilson personally negotiated at the worlds
first
great summit the Treaty of Versailles. A
group of Republican Senators, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, announced before Wilson
had even returned from Paris that they would oppose the treaty and US
membership in the League of Nations. They succeeded and America retreated into
isolation. The verdict of history and of
the American people in 1945, after the cataclysm of WWII was that Wilson=s League (for which
he received the Nobel Peace Prize) might have prevented WWII and international
collective security of democratic and peaceful nations became the keystone of
US foreign policy.
And
what of the postwar era? History now
shows that the policy recognizing the Soviet Union in 1933 (by FDR) and the
subsequent American strategy of containment and then detente and then competition
from Truman though Reagan were the right policies because of the demise of
communism and the USSR.
Nixon=s opening to Red
China has resulted not in a war with that power but almost a half century of
peace and economic competition. So he is
hailed as a visionary.
Barack
Obama has pursued a foreign policy, some points of which I have disagreed with,
that prefers to use all peaceful means, e.g. economic sanctions against an
enemy and negotiation with that enemy before resorting to military action. His predecessor George Bush certainly seemed
to do the opposite -- shoot first and talk later. History will judge who was right in
Afghanistan and Iraq; events will unfold in the next decade that will show us
whether Obama is correct in Iran and Cuba.
Critics
of this Iranian nuclear agreement compare it to Munich and the west=s appeasement of
Hitler. But even the severest critic of
that agreement, Winston Churchill, said, A to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war@. And the prescient analyst of Britain=s failure to prepare
for WWII, John F Kennedy, took office telling our people: A Let us never
negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate@.
Obama
has chosen to advocate trying to coexist with Iran, as Presidents from FDR
through Reagan coexisted with the Soviet Union; and, President=s since Nixon have
followed a policy of amiable relations with China. Is Obama correct? I don=t know - history will
judge and events over the next decade will determine that judgment.
We
lionize our Presidents who use military force to initiate policy (Polk in
Mexico, McKinley with Spain, and Reagan in Grenada to list only a few). We
should at the least respect that President who has heard the voice of the
American people and for their children and grandchildren has decided to A give peace a chance@.
If
the twenty-first century is not to be a repetition of the twentieth century=s brutal wars,
genocidal killings and mass slaughters the President of the world=s greatest power must
earn the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in his first year in office. With the
restoration of relations with Cuba and the nuclear control agreement with Iran
he has.
3
April 2015
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