PBS: Video: NewsHour: Shields and Brooks on Making a Deal With Iran

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

As far as the nuclear deal with Iran, what is the alternative? Invading a large country that is physically the size of Saudi Arabia, but with seventy-five-million people, where the people there tend to be somewhat pro-American, at least the young people. I mean look at Iraq, anyone want to call that a success? Iran is three times the size of Iraq with three times as many people. You want to take their nuclear program out through the air? You have to find it first. Again large country with a lot of people. There’s nothing to lose here for America and everything to gain. If Iran behaves, they won’t get nuclear weapons, they misbehave and will continue to pay the economical price for their bad behavior. Their people want to end the economic sanctions and it looks like so does their government. If you can negotiate with a giant the size of the Soviet Union back in the day that already had nuclear weapons and around four-hundred-million people, you can negotiate with a country that is not nearly as powerful or as large.