How Diplomacy Can Prevent a Nuclear Iran

By President Barack Obama as published in the Dallas Morning News

At the height of the Cold War, with Soviet warheads pointed at all of America’s major cities, President Kennedy rejected calls to hasten a confrontation many saw as inevitable. He argued instead that strong and principled American leadership was the surest path to a peace “based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements.”

For decades, Democratic and Republican presidents alike built on this foundation, forging arms control agreements and other international treaties, and ultimately winning the Cold War without firing a shot at the Soviets.

In that tradition of strong, principled diplomacy, my administration has sought to remove one of the greatest threats facing our world today: the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Here’s my bottom line: If we are committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the choice we ultimately face is between a diplomatic solution and what would likely become another war in the Middle East in the near future. The idea that we can get a better deal by talking tough or squeezing Iran into submission with more sanctions is simply not realistic. The international unity we spent years building — the unity that brought Iran to the negotiating table — would be destroyed if this deal is rejected. Iran would likely kick out inspectors and move its nuclear program deeper underground, making it more difficult to detect and disrupt.

Read the entire column at the Dallas Morning News