In return, the international community lifted severe sanctions that had hurt ordinary Iranians. Iran is coming out of isolation to take its rightful place among the world’s nations, re-establishing trade and business ties. Diplomacy can accomplish miracles given time, patience, and good will.

A Vatican statement speaks of “the important role that Iran is called upon to fulfill in promoting peaceful solutions in Middle Eastern conflicts and countering the spread of terrorism and arms trafficking.” 250,000 civilian deaths have occurred in the Syrian conflict.  Talks in London are scheduled to bring relief to the suffering population.

Pope Francis sees the Iran nuclear deal as “giving hope for the future.” Pope Francis and President Rouhani discussed “the importance of inter-religious dialogue and the responsibility of religious communities in promoting reconciliation, tolerance, and peace.”

The visit ended with Pope Francis thanking President Rouhani and saying, “I hope for peace.” President Rouhani replied by asking Pope Francis to pray for him.

Yet hardliners in Congress are preparing a new sanctions bill. President Obama has vowed to veto it. Whether Congress reaches the two-thirds majority to override his veto depends on whether some Democrats – notably Indiana’s Senator Joe Donnelly – join the Republicans pushing this legislation.

Hawks claim that their bill would mean increased leverage, pushing Iran to make further concessions. But the bill is an ultimatum imposing increased sanctions if Iran does not accept what many experts believe are unnecessarily humiliating terms for a final agreement. The President and global diplomats believe the bill would instead lead Iran to break off negotiations. Iranian hardliners, who have also opposed negotiations, would be vindicated, and Iran would likely step up nuclear activities. That in turn would set the stage for Israel to attack Iran and unleash a new war in the Middle East, almost surely involving the United States.

The last thing the world needs is another war, which would increase the risks of global terrorism as well, ironically, as the chances Iran would actually build a bomb.

Sources:

https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2015-01-15/Congress-Should-Support-Negotiations-Not-New-Iran-Sanctions

https://www.rollcall.com/news/let_the_diplomats_do_the_driving_with_iran_commentary-232362-1.html

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000003454696/obama-urges-against-new-iran-sanctions.html

https://fcnl.org/issues/iran/israeli_us_security_experts_support_first_step_deal/

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama warned: “The sanctions that we put in place helped make this opportunity possible. But let me be clear: If this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it.”

Yet Indiana’s Senators, Joe Donnelly and Dan Coats, are sponsoring just such a bill, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act (S.1881). It demands that Iran totally give up enriching uranium—a requirement that most arms control experts consider unnecessary and that Iranians reject as violating Iran’s right to civilian nuclear energy under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The bill also says that if Israel attacks Iran, the United States should provide military support, in effect delegating to a foreign leader the decision to take the U.S. to war.

Senators Donnelly and Coats received five-figure campaign contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other hawkish groups. But J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace organization, strongly opposes this bill.

With a common adversary in al Qaeda, the United States and Iran need not be eternal enemies.

As President Obama said, “We must give diplomacy a chance to resolve one of the leading security challenges of our time without the risks of war.”

Sources

“A Step, if Modest, Toward Slowing Iran’s Weapons Capability” (NYT)

“Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address: Full text” (CBS News)

“Analysis of Faults in the Menendez-Kirk Iran Sanctions Bill (S. 1881)” (The Center For Arms Control and Non-Proliferation)

“Revealing Money’s Influence On Politics: Pro-Israel” (MapLight)

Forty years later, the American Studies Association and other academic groups are moving along the same path. They are adopting resolutions calling for boycotts or other steps against Israeli institutions, ostensibly because of Israeli policies toward Palestinians. These actions stem from a campaign to treat Israel as a country that practices apartheid, as South Africa once did.

However, not even those it is supposed to help support this movement. Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has objected to boycotting Israeli goods.

Nor is it apt to be very effective. The Economist magazine has called the boycotts “flimsy” with little impact. Even Israeli critics of their country’s policies regard these tactics as counter-productive.

Most importantly, the campaign to equate Zionism with racism is fundamentally flawed. The case for the state of Israel rests not on the claim that Jews are better than other people, but on their right to national self-determination. Until that right is recognized by others in the Middle East, conflict will persist.

In 1991, the UN repealed its resolution. IU’s Michael McRobbie and other academic leaders have already denounced the action of the American Studies Association. But until the Jewish desire for a homeland is accepted, anti-Semitism will continue to flourish in a new form among those who should be most resistant to it.

 Sources

Zionism as Racism Resolution: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, with Suzanne Garment, A Dangerous Place, Little Brown, 1978.

“Campaign Against Israel” (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

“Boycott by Academic Group Is a Symbolic Sting to Israel” (New York Times)

“Boycotting Israel: New Pariah of the Block” (The Economist)

“A Leftist’s Critique of BDS” (Daily Beast)