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Beyond false fear of the unknown
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Much of the initial outcry against the accord reached between Iran and major world powers was predictable, coming from the same tawdry crowd that has resisted everything President Barack Obama has proposed.
Others who object are those for whom the only dependable solution involves a military response.
While these two groups together do represent a large segment of the American population, they are by no means the majority. How then can we explain the unease of so many others?
The unrelenting media spin by the hardliners in this country — made possible by their billionaire backers — has negatively influenced public opinion. But there are two other factors at work, captured in two old sayings:
1. The devil you know is preferable to the devil you do not know — most of us are more comfortable with “the way things are” even if change might achieve a more desirable outcome.
2. The perfect is the enemy of the good — we often reject good solutions because they are not sufficiently perfect.
The opponents of the Iran accord assert that a “better deal” could have been secured if only our negotiators had been “firm and tough enough.”
But what kind of “better deal,” in reality, was possible? When pressed on this, the hard-liners either mention things that were never part of the negotiations’ goals, or an agreement in which Iran would have completely met all of our demands.
The hard truth is that if all of the other negotiating parties were willing to sign the accord, but we were not, then most of the sanctions imposed upon Iran would have been lifted without us anyway, leaving the US more isolated than before in the Middle East.
Those who fear this agreement seem to prefer “staying the course.” But they fail to think through the very real dangers that exist if we do not alter course.
Transformative leadership, while rare, is the only way significant progress occurs. How differently might history have unfolded had Franklin Roosevelt not reached difficult understandings with Josef Stalin, or if John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev had not pulled back from the nuclear brink in 1962?
Each of these persons had the courage to stretch beyond the knowable, to risk attempting to build trust with persons heretofore regarded as “enemies.”
May we somehow find the courage to help each other remove our trembling fingers from the trigger of war. Frankly, the degree of certainty and “safety” that some long for can only come from death. I much prefer the hard work of building bridges among the living.
The author has been a college teacher of American history and political science and the director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference. He served as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives, and retired from public service in 2004.
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