Thursday, April 2, after months of negotiation, during which the Iranian nuclear program was essentially put on hold, Iran agreed to the framework of a negotiated settlement with the P5+1. The framework, upon which final agreement will be structured, defines Iran’s future permitted nuclear activity – that to which it is legally and fully entitled as a Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty signatory.
Upon announcement of the framework (with final terms to be worked out by June 30 through negotiations between American MIT-educated scientists and Iranian MIT-educated scientists) our Republican Party, Tea Partiers, assorted right-wing military adventurists and interventionists, Fox News-inspired know-nothings and discredited cheerleaders for war in Iraq irrupted in unison as though the Apocalypse was upon us.
A party that had already yielded to forces of ignorance on climate change, evolution and race relations succumbed to xenophobia and fear of the Other to condemn a plan still 90 days away from completion – a plan that offers hope and opportunity of stepping away from the precipice of war while containing a potentially destabilizing nuclear program.
Sojourners’ Jim Wallis wrote: “The worst thing we could do is make the Iran nuclear deal a partisan affair. House Speaker John Boehner recently said this about the broader instability in the Middle East: ‘The world is starving for American leadership. But America has an anti-war president.’ In the context of our faith – or even in the context of conservative ideals – is leadership that prevents war something to be maligned? Does the Republican Party now identify as just one of war? And will it allow a diplomatic deal that prevents a nuclear Iran to fail simply because of partisan disagreements with the Obama administration?”