Morning Joe on MSNBC had pretty good coverage of the nuclear agreement with Iran, relaxing Western sanctions on Iran in return for Iran agreeing to restrictions on its nuclear program. Most of the commentary was unfavorable to the deal.
I believe that the world is safer with Iran deal. The nuclear proliferation achieved by India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea are examples of failures. Of those, North Korea is least advanced. Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright argued that President George W. Bush dropped the ball after she started talks with North Korea. On Morning Joe, Richard Haas espoused the Jewish-Israeli viewpoint on the deal. I find this whole thing is very confused because Jews have racist views on Persians, which the Persians reciprocate, and which fills this issue with strong overtones of racist and religious hatred.
People don’t talk about what alternative to the deal would have been. If there were no deal, Iran would not stop its program unless we or Israel were to invade and destroy the nuclear program. The sanctions hurt Iran but did not directly stop the nuclear program.
Morning Joe had Democrat Steve Israel excoriating the deal using his Israeli-Jewish talking points from his namesake, Israel. I think that Jews will dominate the media discussions on the deal, because they hold such influential positions in the media and politics. On Joe, people were not sure whether NY Sen. Chuck Schumer would come down against the deal, representing his Jewish ancestry, or support it as a Democrat.
On Joe, Zbigniew Brzezinski defended the deal as a Christian and a Democrat. He said it was significant that we worked out the deal with the cooperation of other major players, including Russia and China, which is healthy for the deal and for America’s international status.
Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken was about the only Jew defending the Iran deal. He did make the argument that you have to look at alternatives to the deal, or lack of them them. He argued that Iran would get the bomb quickly without the deal.
To make the Jewish arguments even stronger, Morning Joe had on the Israeli Ambassador to criticize deal. Although Joe tried to get him to, he wouldn’t criticize deal as a betrayal of Israel. He said it was just a disagreement. But he said this deal would fail like the one with North Korea. He said American allies, including Israel and the Arabs oppose it. Of course, the Arab countries that oppose it are Sunni, and oppose it because of their religious hatred of the Shiite sect that Iran espouses. In this case the Jews and the Sunni Arabs are united in their religious hatred. The Israeli Ambassador did not mention the supporting roles of China and Russia.
Last to speak, another Christian, the British Ambassador, thought this was a good deal. Like Russian and China, the Brits participated in negotiating the deal. He, like Dr. Brzezinski, said that Iran was just months away from a bomb without the deal.
Of course, the unmentioned alternative to the deal is a military attack on Iran. I think Netanyahu sees this as a great opportunity to attack Iran and kill Iranians. He wants blood. I worry that his blood lust is shared by some Republicans in the US Congress. They loved killing Afghans and Iraqis, and now they want to kill Iranians. As a Vietnam veteran, I believe the US should defend itself, but not unless it is seriously threatened. One of my Foreign Service colleagues, Amb. John Limbert, was a hostage in Tehran, and he recently wrote an article in the Foreign Service Journal calling for rapprochement with Iran, rather than war with it.
A News Hog 