Breaking: Senators Fail To Scare Off Iran From Making a Solid Peace Deal Over Nukes

(Update: Big hello to all the Crooks & Liars readers visiting from Mike's Blog Round Up!  Please comment, and do keep track of the blog 'cause this weekend I'm doing Orlando MegaCon and I plan on posting embarrassing pictures of myself dressed as a Jedi)

Actually, the deal itself is still in the rough draft stage, but once the I's are crossed and the T's are dotted, the United States, major European nations, and Iran will have a deal in place that will encourage - I'd like to say ensure - Iran will not pursue a nuclear weapons program in exchange for the lifting of various sanctions that would improve its economy.  From Joshua Keating:

...But the deal announced this afternoon actually contains some specifics. According to a fact sheet released by the State Department, Iran will reduce its installed centrifuges by two thirds, to around 6,000, and won’t enrich uranium over 3.67 percent for the next 15 years. (“Weapons grade” uranium is more than 90 percent enriched.) Iran will only enrich uranium at its facility at Natanz, with its heavily fortified Fordow reactor converted to a nuclear research center. IAEA inspectors will have access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. And Iran will substantially reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium, though it’s not quite clear if it will be diluted or shipped abroad.

After Iran has fulfilled its commitments, the U.S. and EU will suspend their nuclear-related sanctions and all past UN Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue, including those imposing sanctions, will be lifted, but the “architecture” of these sanctions programs will remain in place to allow them to be quickly reapplied if Iran doesn’t hold up its end of the deal. (Given congressional opposition to lifting sanctions, the Obama administration probably didn’t have the power to scrap them entirely anyway.)...

The deal, of course, is already under attack from the Far Right war-monger and fear-monger crowd of the National Review, Not Fox News, and other "Let's Bomb 'Em All And Let Allah Sort 'Em Out." neocons.  The National Review is already claiming this puts us under the "Shadow of Munich" which is code for how appeasement failed to stop Hitler and Nazi Germany from starting World War II.

Munich always comes up as the bugaboo of the neocons: to them, ANY form of peace negotiations are fruitless against "aggressor states" or "irrational actors"; and to them, every evil dictator is another Hitler wanting global domination or global death.

Problem is: THIS ISN'T MUNICH.  Munich happened under different circumstances and involving different persons and attitudes.  In this day and age, Iran is in no position to go marching armies across the globe: there are too many other nations already alert and prepared.  Iran's leadership may be authoritarian (not totalitarian: there's a distinction) but they're not irrational or crazy like the Nazis.  The Iranians do show signs of making "cost-benefits" analyses of actions both overt and covert, much like the other nations in the region we'd call rational (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel).

If there's been any "irrational actors" during these disarmament talks, it's been a Senate and Republican Party that's shamefully embarrassed their own nation on the global stage on multiple occasions.  It's a Republican Party that no longer seems interested or willing or ideologically capable of recognizing international agreements for what they are.  It's a Republican Party filled with war-hawks eager to send everybody else into harm's way while they enjoy the warm tea being served in Bill O'Reilly's green room.  This is not a Republican Party that would agree with the deals previous Republicans like Bush the Elder or Reagan or Nixon or Eisenhower would make with enemies and allies alike.

Of course, none of that will matter to the Far Right Not News crowd.  They'll be attacking Obama as weak and foolish and a fake American destroying our Christianist Way of Bigotry uh Life like always, and it will still be any minute when someone will openly attack Obama for the way he ties his shoelaces.  I mean, there's been moments when the attacks have been more foolish and insulting than that, but an actual critic of Obama's shoelaces is still a moment to wait and enjoy witnessing...