When crazy people talk, they really mean what they say. If someone tells you they intend to kill you, history teaches us that the act will occur. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But it will. They will do what they say.
So it is with Iran and the recent nuclear agreement announced and denounced. If it is the “good deal” President Obama described, why do some think it is so bad? Why is it good? Why is it bad?
These questions go beyond clichés such as “the devil is in the details,” or
“let’s see what tomorrow brings,” or “at the end of the day” or something that makes no sense when uttered. Clichés are just that: placeholders for ideas we have difficulty expressing, even if the ideas are horrifying.
It’s good because the world can hope for a day when the Iranians might, after a nearly 40-year hiatus, join the rest of the world community.
It’s good because it puts off nuclear bomb creation by the world’s likely most fervent exporter and supporter of terrorism in the Middle East, and elsewhere.
It’s good because U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says it’s good. And the president of the United States has successfully done exactly what he said he would do, not long after his election: re-align American interests.
It’s bad because the biggest winners here are likely the Chinese first and the Russians second. The Chinese because they will now have access to Iranian oil, and be able to create a national oil reserve to power the growth of their economy but also their expanding military muscle.
Watch their aircraft carriers multiply and imagine how the Japanese — who the Chinese have a desire to repay for World War II atrocities — sweat nightly wondering whether the Americans will keep their promise to defend them against an outside attack.
The Russians will have a partner to scheme with right on their border.
Iran will be a new go-between with the Chinese. Putin will focus on redirecting his energies toward doing what Russians have done throughout history: devise ways back into Europe and to warm water ports.
The neighboring Poles will be wondering whether the Americans can be trusted to keep their promise to protect them from outside aggression.
Then there are the Arab states aligned with America. They will be sweating as well, and not from the heat.
Those Sunni Islam dominant nations will be wondering when the Iranians they know so well, will renew activity to return the favor for what the Iranians see as centuries long humiliations of Shiites — the majority of Iranians — by Sunnis. And they too will wonder about American ability to keep promises made.
The Israelis? The war they lose will be the last war for them.
They will watch. But they know Iran, and they know the Iranians will wait as they have been waiting for tens of centuries to do what they want to do again: dominate entirely the region as they once did, throughout the Middle East into Asia.
Is it really so good, this great deal? For now. But then there is the problem of the words of madmen. Those words must be believed.
The Iranian leaders, some not so old at all, have called for death to America — the "great Satan" — and death to Israel, the "little Satan."
These same Iranians with whom the president has now given reprieve from battle while they are militarily weak have helped murder tens of thousands in Syria, shedding no tears as photos of the corpses of children appear daily in the international press.
They have exported killers to murder Jews in Argentina; they have exported killers to other Middle East nations. They have promised to do what they say. It is their way and their destiny.
They believe that the world cannot see the revelation of the Hidden Mahdi, critical to their religious thinking, unless the end of days occur. That means massive explosions and death.
So was it a good deal? No. Was there another choice? Likely not. The Russians and the Chinese gain nothing from an Iran running amok.
The Americans? Does anyone still believe we will stand with those who stand for us? And does anyone still believe our leaders understand history, religion or other cultures? No.
We are the still the land of hope, even when reality has a fist. We have just never been very good at listening to the promises of the apparently insane.
Hank Sheinkopf is an early creator of integrated strategic campaigns using all forms of media and has won national and international awards for his radio and TV productions. He is a veteran of more than 700 political, public policy, and public relations campaigns around the world. Read more reports from Hank Sheinkopf — Click Here Now.
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