Ayed: Are criticisms of the preliminary nuclear accord with Iran prescient or paranoid?

By: /
26 November, 2013
By: Nahlah Ayed
London correspondent for CBC News The National

Not quite prescient nor paranoid, more like predictable.

In some quarters there are those who simply aren’t prepared to trust the Iranian regime on its nuclear intentions – no matter how many others (like the P5+1) are willing to take a chance.

Ultimately, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, nothing will prove Iran’s stated intentions but Iran’s actions. The next six months will be telling indeed.

Others, again predictably, simply abhor the idea of a detente between Washington and Tehran, no matter how well negotiated, and no matter the subject or motivation.
Those too are predictable critics. They are accustomed to an Iran that chants “death to America,” as opposed to one able and willing to put pen to paper and sign a deal with an arch foe it hasn’t had a relationship with for 34 years. It was inevitable that some countries – namely the U.S.’s longtime allies like Saudi Arabia – would detest the idea. It threatens their own position in the Mideast.

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter