Says Iran deal a start to peace | Bellingham Herald

I believe Rep. Rick Larsen deserves credit for coming out in favor of the diplomatic agreement the U.S. has painstakingly negotiated with Iran. As Larsen points out, the deal does not call upon us to trust the Iranian leaders: it creates a balance of carrots and sticks, backed up with unprecedented levels of access for verification, to provide assurance of compliance.

The Iran deal does not make the Iranians our friends, and the specter of war still looms. However, we should not underestimate the power of diplomacy to build a better world. While we humans have assembled an impressive arsenal of military force, it's important to remember that military force has its limits, and to recall that millenia of evolution have created the modern human — despite our capacity for violence, we are also miracles of altruism, with amazing potential for cooperation in the face of adversity.

The Iran deal is not the end of our problems in the Middle East, or even of our concerns about enemies obtaining nuclear weapons. But it does bring an unpredictable and historically hostile country into the community of nations. It is not the end of our search for a more peaceful world, but it is a place to begin.

Bellingham