Peace, Justice and the Ultimate Crime

Few except the most adamant of “Iranophobes” on the outer reactionary fringe in the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia could see the agreement reached between six major world powers and the government of Iran as anything but historic, no matter what sort of reservations one might have about certain details of the pact. The truth is that reaching an accord was the difference between making a bad situation a lot worse or seeking to create a less confrontational Middle East, between isolation and understanding, indeed, between war and peace. And only the blindest or most ill-intentioned of opponents are incapable of seeing this. Viewing the agreement reached last week between Iran and the so-called P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council―China, France, Russia, the UK and the US―plus Germany) as “permitting” Iran to become a nuclear nation is missing the point entirely. The fact is that Iran already is a nuclear nation and has been for some time. It has be...

A deadline came and went without incident last Tuesday, in talks being held in Vienna between Iran and the so-called P5+1―the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the US, the UK, China, France and Russia) plus Germany―regarding the Arab nation’s atomic energy program. The fact that all parties involved decided to remain at the negotiating table for another week should bring a sigh of relief to everyone but hardline warmongers everywhere in the world, because it is of vital importance to world peace that a workable nuclear agreement be reached between the leading military powers and Iran. Failure of this to happen and an ultimate walkout by the US and/or Iran might very likely lead to new and even more expansive conflicts in the Middle East in the future, and to the ghost of nuclear war in an area of the world fraught with multilateral hostilities and rivalries. US President Barack Obama has twice this week warned that the United States will “walk away” if the fin...