A reader launches a rhetorical question concerning the deal:
How likely is that Obama will worry more about short-term optics than long-term security? Or long-term relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia, both of whom vehemently do not want Iran to go nuclear?
If you’re a committed GOPer/Obama hater, you presume he’s all about the short-term opportunity and the legacy – possibly because they hate him, possibly because that’s how they’d do things.
If you’re Andrew Sullivan, you credit him with being far smarter than his critics – quite often true – and, based on that credit, ready to be patient with him.
I’m still bemused by this trade pact – the secrecy seems absurd. But Obama has had a high percentage of good decisions and has shown long-range vision, while dealing with an obstructionist Congress more obsessed with having lost an election than in governing. Is he worried about legacy? He already has the ACA, recovery from the Great Recession, and several other achievements. He has not been generous with planetary science, but Congress has mostly covered that, if I’m to believe the Planetary Society mailings. Since this gig pays nothing, I’m more than willing to see how the deal is done in the end.
