We have a deal. And many of us in the faith community are relieved.
After months of negotiations, missing deadlines, and many stressful final days in Vienna, Iran has agreed to halt its nuclear weapons program for a decade or more, and allow credible international agencies to significantly monitor its behavior. In return, sanctions against Iran will be lifted once it demonstrates compliance on its end. Meanwhile, the West is hopeful that a younger Iranian generation might begin to liberalize the country, prompting a fuller entry into the modern world over the next 10 years. That hope remains to be seen.
Many of us in the faith community have called for diplomacy instead of the only plausible alternative: war with Iran. Other options simply aren't possible. The other major world powers in the mix have made it clear they would not agree to harsher sanctions. Military strikes would only provoke more violence, terrorism, and war without solving the problem of Iran's nuclear escalation. Iran's nuclear weapons development would likely resume immediately without this deal, accelerated and entrenched by resulting military attacks on Iran.