Obama on Iran Deal: A House Under Contract, Awaiting “Appraisal,” “Inspector”

[hue]

Published on Apr 7, 2015

In an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, President Obama defended a nuclear deal with Iran, calling it “the right thing to do for the United States” and for “world peace.” Obama argued that it would succeed whether Iran’s government reforms itself or not. He defended it even though the details have yet to be agreed upon. And he pushed back on critics, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was making a “fundamental misjudgment,” and advising presidential contender Scott Walker to take “some time to bone up on foreign policy.”

[panfluteman]

1. One Smart Cookie in Foreign Affairs!

That's how I would glowingly describe our president. And how refreshing it is to see someone in office who really has a command of the subject, and a realistic, shrewd and pragmatic strategy for achieving his objectives - so much better than the Bush doctrine of preemptive wars and regime change. It's almost like W was a kid in a candy store, going around playing with and wrecking anything he wanted - or maybe as the "decider" and executive marionette of that sociopathic puppetmeister, Darth Cheney.

His interviewer really fired some real hardball questions at him - the kind that were forbidden at W's press conferences - but Obama was ever at the ready, to fire back his pearls of foreign affairs wisdom. Isolating a country from the international community only breeds more desperate, provocative behavior, so why not integrate Iran back into the international community - with ample verification built in? Sure beats calling them "the Evil Empire", or the "Axis of Evil", or saying that you're launching a crusade against them, as so many of Obama's Republican forerunners have done.

The big question is: How successful can Obama be in educating and enlightening the American public about the details of the Iran deal as they will be consummated in the next couple of months? And are the American people intelligent enough to understand, and grasp that it is a heckuva lot better than going to war - which is the only de facto, default alternative that the Republicans are proposing?