No perfect deal
by digby
About that “perfect deal” with Iran that the president certainly isn’t pursuing:
This is a fantasy, a unicorn, the futile pursuit of which ends with a half-assed airstrike against Iran, a region in flames, and eventually an Iranian nuclear weapon. And let’s be clear: If negotiations collapse, the United States will take the blame from Europe and the sanctions regime will unravel. And here’s the best-case scenario: Any military action against Iran will set its nuclear program back, at best, a couple of years. But the anger will last generations.Any military action against Iran will set its nuclear program back, at best, a couple of years. But the anger will last generations.
I’m fairly sure Tom Cotton and the boys are willing to occupy the country for a hundred years. But that’s a unicorn too. We really can’t afford it:
In 2000, the Republican candidates for president campaigned against the Clinton administration’s policies toward North Korea and its nuclear weapons program, especially the 1994 Agreed Framework that froze North Korea’s plutonium production infrastructure. In particular, Republicans argued — as they do today with Iran — that North Korea’s nuclear programs had to be completely dismantled, not merely frozen. Sen. John McCain accused the Clinton administration of “appeasement” then, as Sen. Cotton accuses the Obama administration of appeasement today. There were plenty of reasons to be worried about North Korea’s compliance, but the fundamental interest was the same as with Iran: Even an imperfect freeze on plutonium programs put the United States in a stronger, safer position to manage the problem. When intelligence emerged suggesting that North Korea’s enrichment program was more advanced than previously thought, the Bush administration walked away from the Agreed Framework, as well as its own policy of a “bold approach” to transform U.S.-DPRK relations. The deal was dead.
What happened next should temper the enthusiasm of anyone who wants to walk away from talks with Iran now. North Korea stockpiled plutonium and tested a nuclear weapon. In recent years, a nuclear-armed Pyongyang also engaged in a series of conventional provocations, like sinking South Korean ships and shelling islands. After a few years, and to his credit, Bush reversed course and tried to negotiate a new agreement. But the North Koreans had far more leverage at that point, and certainly weren’t about to agree to dismantle any nuclear facilities. Since “freeze” was still a dirty word, the State Department called the process “disablement” — which is a make-believe word for a make-believe world in which a Republican administration had not just negotiated the same deal (well, a little worse, actually) than the one they trashed.
He claims that a GOP president would negotiate the same deal that Obama is negotiating because that’s just the reality of it all. I’m not quite as sanguine about that simply because we saw them launch a war on the pretext of stopping a nuclear program within the last decade. I guess I just feel they’re capable of anything. And it’s quite clear that war is what a whole bunch of them believe is the only answer to the problem.
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