Obama As Nixon?

As conservatives foam at the mouth about appeasement, the recent agreement with Iran (full text available here) reads less like appeasement and more like Nixon's pivot to China. The president himself has channeled Ronald Reagan using Gip's "Trust but verify" line but the comparisons to China are closer to objective reality.

China was a pretty awful country on a number of levels when Nixon went to China and already had a small cache of nuclear weapons. Nixon gambled that bringing China into the world economic community would tame their more militaristic intentions. He was right. Making money in a global economy based on capitalism using tends to chill people out. This is exactly what President Obama thinks will happen with Iran.

With sanctions set to fall apart anyway, this was the best route to take even though it isn't a perfect deal. Iran will not get a nuclear weapon in the next decade. Take note of how criticism of the deal is now centered on Iran being able to fund terrorism not get a nuclear weapon. That speaks volumes...