When the news came out of Vienna, the first thing we thought (somewhat childishly) was what a good time we once had there, sipping coffee at the Café Mozart near the great Opera House, not far from the neoclassical Palais Coburg where the negotiators had wrestled passionately, though comfortably, for such a long time. Perhaps influenced by this civilized setting, these seven diplomats combined to shine a light on a brighter future, and we’d be foolish to turn away.
This is a world where peace is hard to find. Our own country is rife with suspicion and violence: Lafayette, Prairie View, Chattanooga, Charleston, Aurora, Newtown, Ferguson — our towns are getting known, not for their accomplishments, but for the blood spilled there. Anger and fear bubble on all sides, in no place more fiercely than the Middle East, with Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Armenians, and Israelis tangled in knotty hatreds reaching far back in time.
As with most windows of opportunity, this one — the Nuclear Accord with Iran — has been opened by a rare coming-together (like NASA’s New Horizon flying by Pluto) that’s not likely to happen again in our lifetimes. So intractable are our mutual problems and distrust, it seemed impossible that this steady slide toward antagonism and destruction could ever be slowed. And yet we have a chance to do that now.
The first miracle is that besides Iran and America, we have the signatures of Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China. When will it ever happen again? Second, we have two presidents, Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani, that no one would have imagined 10 years ago, both of whom have to battle powerful right-wing forces in their own countries. Obama, despite the Supreme Court upholding his programs, faces a Congress dedicated to defeating anything he does. And Rouhani, a moderate reformist with a Ph.D. from Glasgow, has to deal with rigid theologians previously headed by his predecessor, the raving Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his unpredictable Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But Rouhani campaigned promising reforms at home and better relations with the West; and, with an educated pro-American population, this is now more possible than anyone thought. (It’s probable that Jason Rezaian, the American reporter still held in an Iranian jail, was arrested as a spy by anti-American politicians in an effort to embarrass Rouhani.)
Lining up with Obama and Rouhani were two indefatigable diplomats, both of whom in a better world would have been presidents of their countries, Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif. As they went back and forth to the hard-liners in both countries, months passing, deadlines falling, either one could have quit at any time; but back and forth they went, nursing a flickering flame.
Backing them were two brilliant scientists, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Iran’s Atomic Energy Chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, who — coincidentally and importantly — were together at MIT, Moniz as a faculty member and Salehi as a graduate student. They didn’t know each other then, but their paths took the same swift trajectory. These two hammered out the technical aspects of the deal like a nuclear Rubik’s Cube.
The seventh man, who’s been beside President Obama throughout the extended process, was Joe Biden, whose gift of good will and calming common sense was invaluable; and is needed more as the Accord is brought before a skeptical and prejudiced Congress. (Just compare this team to its opponents, fearmongers like Cheney, Netanyahu, Krauthammer, Kristol and their Republican friends, all of whom gave us the Iraq abomination.)
At the end, these talented negotiators — Obama, Housani, Kerry, Sarif, Moniz, Salehi and Biden — handed us a seven-candled candelabra illuminating a possible way out of the wilderness. It wasn’t easy for Moses (Exodus 26:31), and it won’t be easy for us. But we shouldn’t be afraid.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2015.