With friends like these who needs enimas

Saturday night at about 10:15pm ET President Obama addressed the public on the deal the P5+1 had just reached with Iran over its nuclear program. There are so many reports, both in print and on TV, all raising more questions than they answer, that it's hard to know what to think.

To be clear and to echo the point made this morning by Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Congresman Mike Rogers on MSNBC's Morning Joe the deal reached only deals with the issue of the nuclear program. The deal doesn't touch on things like Iran's ballistic missle program or military research facilites. It's dealing with what Iran can and can't do as far as enriching uranium and the relaxing of sanctions.


Iran's President Hassan Rouhani claims a right to enrich for peaceful purposes and has said they'll continue to do so. Secretary of State John Kerry's comments stress the very limited nature of any enrichment Iran will be allowed during the 6 months of this deal and beyond. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal an "historic mistake." I can completely understand, given the history of what has been done to Jewish people, the thinking Israel has in wanting to never allow an attempt at wiping them from the planet again. However shouldn't there be a balance between self-preservation and coexisting?



According to reports upset is coming from more than just Israel. I'm aware that if Iran does get a bomb that would be an extremely bad thing for stability in the region. What I'm wondering is why not take a very cautious view of this deal as at the very least if they comply it moves there completion of a bomb from weeks to months. If this works though and Iran complies wouldn't it be a great step towards peace among the countries in the region? I ask that fully aware that this could go very wrong. I'm just thinking that giving diplomacy this chance just might be worth it and that diplomacy should always be tried first.



I'm by no means an expert on any of this. But between the news coverage and the timing of being in a world politics class with a professor so willing to answer questions in class, by email and via his blog (he has a post on this topic here) I'm trying to listen and sift through information. My goal is trying to begin forming my own thoughts and opinions. I'm also following my professor's advice and trying to remove emotions from my analyzation.

Here is the NPT if you're interested in seeing what it says.