Obama’s News Conference Was a Case for American Weakness
Dana Milbank – The Washington Post
This was an undercurrent of the whole news conference Wednesday afternoon, and of Obama’s overall defense of the Iran deal. He was tough and strong, but in service of the argument that American power is limited — that this is the best deal we could get with our declining leverage. His defenders call it realism; it also may amount to ratifying retreat.
Obama took on those who said a better deal would have stripped Iran of all nuclear capability. “The problem with that position is that there is nobody who thinks that Iran would or could ever accept that, and the international community does not take the view that Iran can’t have a peaceful nuclear program,” he said. “And so we don’t have diplomatic leverage.”
“No one suggests that this deal resolves all the threats that Iran poses to its neighbors or the world,” he said, returning repeatedly to the argument that none of his critics has “presented to me or the American people a better alternative.”
He’s right. And this is why it was, sadly, a powerful case — for American weakness.
Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani arrives for an address to the nation after a nuclear agreement was announced. Tehran, Iran, July 14, 2015 (AP)
The Iran Deal Is a Victory for Obama Diplomacy Over Bush Warmongering
Matthew Duss – The New Republic
“I don’t want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.” That was Senator Barack Obama, speaking about Iraq in a 2008 primary debate. For a candidate who had seen his own campaign surge on the strength of his opposition to the Iraq war, it was a near-perfect distillation of the change he hoped to bring to America’s foreign policy discussion, long dominated by hawkish views that were shattering against the bloody reality of Iraq’s civil war….
In stark contrast, the historic nuclear deal announced Tuesday in Vienna between the U.S. and its P5+1 partners and Iran demonstrates an alternative vision of the use of American power. It shows that our security and the security of our partners can be effectively advanced through multilateral diplomacy, and proves once again the importance of U.S. global leadership in addressing shared problems….
And by demonstrating to the Iranian regime that a positive change in its behavior can produce benefits, the deal could empower more moderate elements within Iran calling for broader reforms.
An Iranian woman shows the victory sign during street celebrations following a landmark nuclear deal, in Tehran, Iran, July 14, 2015. (AP)
Why I’m Torn About the Iran Seal: Was it Worth it?
Shadi Hamid – The Brookings Institution
The Obama administration underscored time and time again that this wasn’t about Iran’s other activities in the region: it was about the nuclear program….
Administrations can, of course, “walk and chew gum at the same time,” but that neglects the interrelated nature of Middle East conflicts. The boutique case-by-base approach to the region that Obama has championed sounds smart and nuanced in theory – a welcome respite Bush’s self-consciously grandiose frameworks – but if the Arab Spring underscored anything, it’s that politics are rarely only local. In nearly every major crisis and conflict – whether in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, or Bahrain – external actors with regional ambitions have played an outsized, even decisive role….
But the specifics of the deal aren’t, ultimately, as important as the broader issues and implications … Here, I tend to agree with my colleague Jeremy Shapiro who argued in April that that the devil wasn’t in the details…. “At heart, this is a fight over what to do about Iran’s challenge to U.S. leadership in the Middle East and the threat that Iranian geopolitical ambitions pose to U.S. allies.”