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.

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