Occam's Razor

Our national government currently resembles a three-ring circus. Between carbon copy Republicans running for president on a platform of mostly hot air, pabulum from the so-called leaders of the U.S. congress and the weird rulings and opinions from our Supreme Court justices, a whole lot of nothing meaningful is happening in Washington at your expense.

There is thankfully one exception: we’re getting a lot of leadership from President Obama. And yesterday, the president tentatively scored a major win: a negotiated agreement with Iran over its nuclear weapons program, in concert with four other major powers that participated in the talks. The agreement reduces Iran’s nuclear capabilities over the next ten years and Iran gets release from the crippling sanctions against the country. This will be done through unfettered inspections of its nuclear facilities and sealed commitments to reduce its uranium stockpiles.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the agreement was announced but I was also grinning. In his first presidential campaign, Obama had promised change we could believe in. It’s been hard to deliver a lot of this change given the relentless obstruction in Congress, but this agreement should it be realized certainly will be change I can believe in. This is the kind of change I voted for, and it’s meaningful change.

While Republicans fall over themselves to deny global warming, restrict a woman’s right to an abortion and make life increasingly miserable for the poor and the wretched, at least Obama has kept his focus long term. While CEOs do conniptions to show higher quarterly profits, our president has ignored the rhetoric of the moment and concentrated on what we paid him for: real leadership. And boy did he deliver yesterday!

Consider what would happen if “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” John McCain had been elected president instead of Barack Obama. It’s pretty clear what would have happened based on McCain’s own words then and over the last six and a half years. Negotiate with Iran? It would not have been an option. It would have been framed as negotiating with terrorists. It’s quite likely that instead we would now be hip deep in another long, ghastly and frighteningly expensive war with Iran. Bombs would be dropping. Our ships would be shelling Iran’s shores. Aircraft would be dropping bunker-busting bombs all over the country, and maybe outside of it. Our troops would be dying, and overstretched in the area, which is already rife with conflict. That region would be even more so with a major war in Iran and the Islamic State even more resurgent. Consider what would be giving up now if we were at war with Iran: support for the Iraqi government, and the Kurds and pretty much anyone else trying to contain the Islamic state, and that’s just for starters. Our attention on other threats in Asia and Africa would be largely nonexistent.

This new war, as awful as it would be, would be far more awful because it would set in motion a series of future wars. Rather than contain Iran’s nuclear might, it would unleash decades of future madness in that region. Iran, which already hates America, would find it hated us even more due to the war. It would be working that much harder to undermine our national security through its proxies. You don’t have to look far in the Middle East to see how the hate business propagates endlessly. Israel and Palestine are locked in an eternal war fought as lots of major skirmishes. Each action by Israel or proxies for the Palestinians simply set up the participants for the next one, and further inflames tensions, making it impossible for them to cool. There is no military solution to their problems, just as there is no military solution to the West’s conflict with Iran.

The difference is that unlike Israel’s relentless intransigence, the United States can affect real political change through diplomacy instead of war. Obama figured that out long before he was president. He realized that the most important thing was to stop the cycle of hate and paranoia, because this puts out the flames of war. He spoke openly to the Iranian people that change was possible. He said that Iran and the United States did not have to be eternal enemies. He said we could resolve our conflict through diplomacy, but only if both sides were earnest and passions could cool. To improve the odds he worked with an international coalition not just to maintain sanctions on Iran but also to work together to find a peaceful way to lift them through a comprehensive agreement. And amazingly with the help of two hard working secretaries of state (Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) and of course our international partners (which gave us credibility), they pulled off this agreement.

Of course there are no guarantees that Congress will approve this agreement. It will probably be rejected, but because it is not a treaty, Obama’s veto of their bill rejecting it probably means he will win. This is because Congress probably can’t muster two thirds majority in both chambers to overrule his veto. Of course it is fraught with lots of potential pitfalls. But it also significantly reduces Iran’s nuclear weapon making capability and brings Iran back into the international community. It eases tensions and allows time for Iran’s demographics to take hold. It is a country full of young people, and it’s likely as they age they will have much more liberal values than their current leaders. You can see this from the satellite dishes on pretty much every house of size in Iran today. Iranians are more than ready to embrace Western values. They are just waiting for the political climate to change.

You will hear the usual noise from the war hawks about why this agreement is actually a calamity and how we are selling out our values not to mention our national security. In reality, Obama is holding us to our values, showing that we are a nation that values peace and goodwill. This buys real national security because when people don’t have reason to hate you, something called real peace happens. Obama is showing that we can model what is best about our country to the rest of the world again, rather than assert what is worst about it. He is reminding us of a time in the late 1940s and early 1950s when this was the United States and we really were that shining city on the hill. We sponsored the United Nations. We rebuilt Europe. We built international coalitions to handle the Korean conflict. We fed much of the malnourished world. We were an awesome country back then.

To quote the late Hubert Humphrey, I’m as pleased as punch with our president. Obviously he is not a flawless president. I too have major concerns with some of his decisions as president. However, his focus on a long game and doing the intelligent thing rather than the emotional thing certainly garners not just my respect, but also my deep admiration and gratitude.

Thank you for being one of the few grown up leaders in our government, Mr. President.