Nice going, John Kerry.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
22 Comments
Recent Posts
- Day 25: The Fascist Regime Comes for the Federal Prosecutors
- Day 23: The Fascist Regime and House Budget Committee Are Coming for Medicaid
- Day 22: The Fascist Regime Destabilizes the Jordanian Monarchy
- Day 21: The Fascist Regime Screws Farmers, Tries to Sabotage U.S. Bonds
- Day 20: Super Bowl Edition
Hopefully Kerry gets the weekend off after this. The parameters are more than I’d thought Kerry could get and more than Trump, with his ‘I could’ve done this in a day’ could have ever imagined.
Before the pundits have at it with this, I do like giving Kerry credit for his work.
Indeed.
Now, will Israel, India, and Pakistan sign something like this so that the US, Russia, and China can get on with eliminating nuclear weapons as an option of war.
Now will 47 Senators admit they were betraying the country with Tom Cotton’s letter?
Being able to get this through the June 30 final version will build the confidence to normalize relationships.
Well done. Now let’s hope the Disloyal Opposition can be forestalled from gumming it up somehow.
Provisionally, I’m going to give most of the credit to President Obama. Had he not been stuck with Clinton as SOS, the Nobel Peace Prize committee’s confidence in him might have been realized sooner. But, better late than never.
My first reaction in 1978 to Carter’s success in the Egypt-Israel deal was “Wow!” The expectation that day was that he would likely be re-elected. Sadly, he stumbled badly in the next year and a half and that set up decades of unnecessary or avoidable conflict with Iran. Because after the Camp David Accords, Carter chose to listen to and rely on Brzezinski and not Cyrus Vance. And Brzezinski seems to be today that same cluck he was in ’79-80.
Amid the furore over Obama’s speech in Cairo some nuance was overlooked; “Since taking office, Obama stated his support for the creation of a Palestinian state and announced that he would engage in negotiations with Iran.”
Well, he’s batting .500 which ain’t bad.
Brzezinski’s book, the grand failure, was about as good as I have ever read at predicting the future.
Now for the consequences; intended or otherwise. This deal, if and when closed, represents almost as big a turning point in US foreign policy as China in 1972.
Obama didn’t just formally end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; he made it unlikely that the Sunni coalition which enabled those wars could ever be used again for the same purpose. Whether the Daesh are a help or hindrance in this effort remains to be seen but it could go either way, methinks.
In the meantime we have taken one step back from our Gulf alliances and our unilateral support for Israel; painful but arguably necessary.
The nuclear nations (“rogue nations”) that have not ratified the non-proliferation treaty are India, Iran, and Pakistan. North Korea abrogated the non-proliferation treaty when George W. Bush threatened it as a member of the “axis of evil”.
Iran is a signatory to the nonproliferation treaty, has ratified the non-proliferation treaty, has a public stance that it is not seeking nuclear weapons, and now has agreed to a strict inspection regime. Iran at the moment is agreed to have no, zero, null, none potentially operational nuclear weapons.
Is non-proliferation and disarming from nuclear weapons the issue, or is a fear of the US having to reduce its nuclear stockpile the issue.
It is still possible with the right relationships among the P5+1 for the Obama administration to succeed by January 2017 in ending all national chemical and biological programs (most all of which are matters of formality than substance, the governments having decided years ago that neither technology makes military sense). It is still possible for the US to reduce the nuclear club to negotiations among Russia, China, and the US. That will require India-China-Pakistan negotiations. It will require China-North Korea-South Korea-US-Japan negotiations. And it will require Russia-China-US negotiations to keep the others on track.
I assume you mean Israel instead of Iran in the first sentence.
Indeed, yes, Israel.
Sorry Booman, I disagree, I don’t think this agreement should be listed under the “Casual” header…it looks pretty darn good. Thanks for the link.
This seems like a BFD to me.
I agree, nice work Kerry.
Yes, glad we have the apt term “BFD” for this, thanks, Obama!!!!
thank you Secretary Kerry
Meanwhile, from within Iran these three women chip away at the regime with…of all things surfing Beautiful story.
Yes, a positive FP accomplishment, it appears, for the Obama admin. But it will matter for little if Obama doesn’t start wising up about his hardline stance against Russia. That, along with how to deal w/ ISIS, is the even more important issue facing our FP leaders at the moment.
And on that point, it pains me to read that yet another liberal-left hero from the 2004 campaign has bitten the dust. Yesterday, I heard that Howard Dean had joined up as a lobbyist for some Iranian group opposed to the US-Iran nuclear deal. Today I hear that former Gen Wesley Clark has been making noises at the Atlantic Council that Russia might decide to move militarily into Ukraine sometime between Apr 12 and VE Day (May 9 in Russia, a major national holiday). He advises that the US needs to start giving Kiev lethal military aide now in anticipation of the supposed imminent Russian attack.
Will Obama wake up to the disaster that is the US-Russia relationship and begin the repair work, or will he decide he can’t afford to look too soft on the Russkies, especially after his soft diplomacy effort w/Iran. I would bet on the latter.
Links please. I can’t seem to find anything that backs up your comment on Howard Dean.
WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin talking about HoDo on MoJo.
That you cite Jennifer Rubin aside, the article doesn’t mention anything about ‘Howard Dean has joined up with a lobbyist group for some Iranian group opposed to the US-Iran nuclear deal’.
Poorly worded sentence. Should have said “Howard Dean is paid shill for Iranian regime change group”.
Essentially correct though what I wrote, except for the lobbyist part. I understand he isn’t registered as one. Fine. He still works for a law firm, a major defense contractor firm it turns out, one of whose clients is MEK, an anti-Iranian regime group also against the Obama admin’s current deal making w/Iran.
And I cited Jennifer Rubin not as my go-to gal for important info, but to show which side HoDo is on these days wrt the Iran situation.
Your reaction to HoDo?
McKenna Long Aldridge lists him as an independent whose focus is on health care and energy. Where are your links?
Whether the economy is in great or poor shape, having a great credit score can save you hundreds of thousands over the life of a mortgage. It can save you thousands in credit card interest payments, thousands in car payments, and even thousands in student loan payments. There is a reason credit restoration will always be needed and that is the sheer number or errors contained on reports themselves and the amount of time it takes to dispute such errors.
free credit report california
free credit score california