Experts in diplomacy, international relations, and monitoring continue to weigh in on the Iran deal, also known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). First up are mass endorsement letters released by The Iran Project, the first by ambassadors:
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran stands as a landmark agreement in deterring the proliferation of nuclear weapons. If properly implemented, this comprehensive and rigorously negotiated agreement can be an effective instrument in arresting Iran’s nuclear program and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the volatile and vitally important region of the Middle East. Without your determination and the admirable work of Secretary of State Kerry and his team, this agreement would never have been reached.
As former American diplomats, we have devoted much of our lives to ensuring that the President had available the best possible diplomatic approaches to dealing with challenges to our nation’s security, even while recognizing that a strong military is essential to help the President and the Congress to carry out their duties to protect the nation and its people. Effective diplomacy backed by credible defense will be critically important now, during the period of inspection and verification of Iran’s compliance with the agreement.
This is signed by a large number of retired ambassadors, from both American political parties. The Iran Project also presents a similar letter signed by national security experts:
We applaud the announcement that a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been reached with Iran to limit its nuclear program. We congratulate President Obama and all the negotiators for a landmark agreement unprecedented in its importance for preventing the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran.
Though primarily a nonproliferation agreement, the JCPOA has significant implications for some of America’s most important national objectives: regional stability in the Middle East, Israel’s security,dealing with an untrustworthy and hostile nation, and U.S. leadership on major global challenges.
The signees include names such as Albright, Brzezinski, Lugar, and many more who’ve dealt with the foreign arena all their careers. Now AL Monitor reports the endorsement of Brent Snowcroft, National Security Advisor to Bush I, as well as that of former Republican Senator John Warner:
In a draft op-ed that was shared in part with Al-Monitor on Aug. 13, Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush and a trusted confident [sic] of many of Bush’s successors, said that in his view the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran “meets the key objective, shared by recent administrations of both parties, that Iran limit itself to a strictly civilian nuclear program with unprecedented verification and monitoring by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the UN Security Council.”
“To turn our back on [the JCPOA] would be an abdication of America’s unique role and responsibility, incurring justified dismay among our allies and friends,” Scowcroft wrote.
Earlier, on Aug. 13, former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) published an op-ed with another former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin (D-Mich.), supporting the deal reached between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany on July 14.
Taking a different tack than Scowcroft, Warner and Levin argued that US failure to implement the JCPOA would undercut any potential US military deterrent against Iran.
Meanwhile, the American public doesn’t think Obama’s approach is a winner, according to Gallup:
Only one in three Americans approve of President Barack Obama’s handling of the situation in Iran — his lowest rating of eight issues measured in a new Gallup survey. The president’s policy toward Iran has been a major focus as he tries to drum up support for the multi-national agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities that Secretary of State John Kerry helped broker. Obama earns his highest marks on race relations, education and climate change, though he does not receive majority approval on any.
Historically, the American public has never done well in the foreign relation arena – and that’s really OK, once you think about it. We hire and train people to become experts for us so we don’t have to be those experts while we go about our everyday lives. So a poll like this, while perhaps interesting, is really rather irrelevant. If you’re an expert, great – weigh in. Honest, well-reasoned opposition is important. And that’s where the Republican opposition, which lacks the reasoning and just seems to react poorly to anything done by the Obama and the Democrats, is failing the United States, because we’re not getting the important critiques, we’re just getting opposition, fear, and manipulation. That’s just failure, and would be helpful if the American people replaced the obstructionists with someone else – just moderate, thinking Republicans would be just fine.
AL Monitor‘s Laura Rozen presents an interesting history of the secret meetings of the Iran Deal here.
