Safe to say that until Iran does what it intends to do viz the putative deal dangled before it by a desperate Obama administration we simply won't be able to say for sure who was right and who was wrong and who got led down the garden path - still, I do notice that those inclined to defend the negotiations routinely tend to ignore two known unknowns that are provisionally knowable that once known [provisionally] render the negotiations in a none too favorable light - namely, that Russia and China's intentions and goals here are antithetical to America's and therefore should [when inevitably] Iran choose[s] to play the part of devil in the details they will be most willing advocates of the theocracy's interests thereof - and that Obama has no intention and never had any intention of embracing the military option and that consideration alone, regardless of all else, should thoroughly subvert optimism since it bequeaths to Iran all leverage, ie Obama needs 'a deal' or at least drawn out negotiations as much if not indeed more than they do.
Once you accept these two provisional realities [provisional in sense that time has yet to prove them as real as they assuredly are] it becomes virtually impossible to view the Obama/Kerry tack viz Iran as being anything but naively misguided or cynically disingenuous.
[of course there are those who see this as a deliberate attempt to rework the strategic map of the Mideast in a profound way - I have a great deal of trouble buying that. I don't deny that the Obama admin may be attempting an embrace of such a notion and it may be 'deliberate' in that sense, but if true I'd see it as less deliberative and more desperate or just simply gullible - this type of thinking is of the naive kind that thought it obvious that the Ukraine would side with the EU and not Russia - these people look at Iran and see a moderate intellectual elite buried beneath all the religious fervor and antipathy and think 'well, we can work with them' - removing religion from the equation and asking if Nixon could go to China why can't Obama go to Iran would be unwise. Plus, there's many other problems here - turning your back on Israel and the Saudis, climbing into bed with the bloody regime in Syria and the best organized terrorist outfit in the world, Hezbollah - I mean, how the hell would that work? And then there's the consideration of how much such a move would piss off Sunni extremists who already hate the West - there's gonna be some awfully dangerous radicals wandering back to Europe from Syria already plenty motivated to do ill - a deal with Iran that enables Assad and Hezbollah is hardly gonna sit well with them. Then there's Russia and China who see this as an opportunity to weaken America and have things lined up right now to do that - so why would they play nice here? So to me this 'strategy' makes no sense, or makes sense only in the abstract - which is no doubt why those who talk about it in a serious way all tend to be liberals. As Ukraine has reminded us, and China's recent aggressive actions in the China Sea too, when it comes to foreign policy liberals tend to view the world not as it is but as they fancy it should be - this leads to the making of some very dangerous assumptions designed to prop up that view for as long as possible regardless of reality's ceaseless efforts to drag it down]
Once you accept these two provisional realities [provisional in sense that time has yet to prove them as real as they assuredly are] it becomes virtually impossible to view the Obama/Kerry tack viz Iran as being anything but naively misguided or cynically disingenuous.
[of course there are those who see this as a deliberate attempt to rework the strategic map of the Mideast in a profound way - I have a great deal of trouble buying that. I don't deny that the Obama admin may be attempting an embrace of such a notion and it may be 'deliberate' in that sense, but if true I'd see it as less deliberative and more desperate or just simply gullible - this type of thinking is of the naive kind that thought it obvious that the Ukraine would side with the EU and not Russia - these people look at Iran and see a moderate intellectual elite buried beneath all the religious fervor and antipathy and think 'well, we can work with them' - removing religion from the equation and asking if Nixon could go to China why can't Obama go to Iran would be unwise. Plus, there's many other problems here - turning your back on Israel and the Saudis, climbing into bed with the bloody regime in Syria and the best organized terrorist outfit in the world, Hezbollah - I mean, how the hell would that work? And then there's the consideration of how much such a move would piss off Sunni extremists who already hate the West - there's gonna be some awfully dangerous radicals wandering back to Europe from Syria already plenty motivated to do ill - a deal with Iran that enables Assad and Hezbollah is hardly gonna sit well with them. Then there's Russia and China who see this as an opportunity to weaken America and have things lined up right now to do that - so why would they play nice here? So to me this 'strategy' makes no sense, or makes sense only in the abstract - which is no doubt why those who talk about it in a serious way all tend to be liberals. As Ukraine has reminded us, and China's recent aggressive actions in the China Sea too, when it comes to foreign policy liberals tend to view the world not as it is but as they fancy it should be - this leads to the making of some very dangerous assumptions designed to prop up that view for as long as possible regardless of reality's ceaseless efforts to drag it down]
