Deal offers chance to ease Iran's nuclear threat: Our view
Any course the United States might have chosen for reining in Iran's nuclear weapons program was sure to require a gamble of historic scale, and the agreement reached Thursday in Switzerland certainly qualifies.
It is, at the least, promising — a surprisingly detailed framework that undermines the arguments of skeptics who insisted no such deal was possible.
If a final deal is concluded in June (still no certainty given continuing differences over important details), Iran would be required to close or limit its key nuclear facilities. It would also have to reduce its stocks of nuclear fuel and the centrifuges used to make it. All this would occur under the watch of intrusive international inspections.
That would be an extraordinary achievement, easing one of the world's most intractable problems. But it would come at high cost.
Once Iran complies, it would be freed from the crippling economic sanctions that brought it to the table, filling the Islamic Republic's coffers with funds that would surely be used to further destabilize the Middle East.
That trade-off — never part of negotiations that were confined to nuclear diplomacy — helps explain why opposition to the agreement has been so fierce and will remain so.
It explains why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the framework "would threaten the survival of Israel," why Saudi Arabia (Iran's chief Muslim adversary) has been suggesting it might nuke up, and why congressional Republicans have been openly trying to undermine the negotiations.
To all of the critics, the details — short of a capitulation that's incompatible with the concept of negotiation — don't matter. They prefer the aggressive confrontation of Iran's ambitions across the region, with deep U.S. involvement and a high risk of war.
Given Iran's behavior, it is not an easy choice. But removing Iran's nuclear threat would be no small thing, and as diplomacy goes, the deal negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry and counterparts from France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China appears at this early stage to be a significant success.
Until 18 months ago, the U.S. and Iran weren't even on speaking terms. Now they have a potentially historic agreement that might, in an optimistic view, lead to further progress after 40 years of hostility. At a minimum, it should push back Iran's nuclear breakout time to a year, from the current two to three months, and give the international community far greater visibility into Iran's nuclear activities.
For that to happen, much remains to be done. Among other details, inspections need to be made airtight, and it needs to be determined whether the framework's contemplated "snap back" of sanctions to counter Iranian cheating is even credible.
It will never be an easy deal to accept. But perfection is not one of the choices. Either the deal will be completed, or hard-liners on one side or the other will get the confrontation they seek.
The consequences will be historic, but before setting a course for war, it's usually best to at least give peace a chance, particularly since all other options will remain open if the agreement fails.
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