It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of o President Obama’s legacy and indeed the security of the Middle East.
If the deal stops “the spread of nuclear weapons in this region,” as Obama insisted Tuesday, it will be a magnificent achievement. But if the deal fails to halt Iran’s pursuit of such weapons, and cheating leads to a regional arms race and war, Obama will become a 21st century version of “Peace for Our Time” Neville Chamberlain.
We’ve tended to give the benefit of the doubt to the administration’s goals, on the theory that economic sanctions have not deterred Iran and are unlikely to do so in the future, and putting Iran’s nuclear program on ice for at least 10 years would be progress.
But if that is true, it is also why the verification and enforcement elements are so important — and why they should become the focus of Congress in the coming days.
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