Keller @ Large: Iran Nuclear Deal Like Letting A 'Violent Felon Walk Free'
BOSTON (CBS) --- Reliving the early 1960's recently through all the coverage of the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy has been a reminder of how times may change, but some issues remain constant.
Fear of nuclear war had been building for some time, and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 made it very real for several generations of Americans. And here we are, a half-century later, still worried that someone reckless will again choose to use nuclear power as a weapon, and still not really sure what to do about it.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
Keller at Large Nov 25 2013
We should all hope for the success of this deal. No rational person would suggest that a military solution to this problem is preferable to a diplomatic one.
Let's hope Secretary of State John Kerry is going into this with the same extreme skepticism that I suspect most of us have.
Even the New York Times, hardly a knee-jerk administration critic, says the deal "requires Iran to make only a modest down payment on the central problem" by failing to "roll back the vast majority of the advances Iran has made in the past five years, which have drastically shortened…the minimum time it would take to build a weapon if Iran's supreme leader or military decided to pursue that path."
I'd feel more optimistic about this if the deal also addressed Iran's role as a chief sponsor of global terrorism. A verifiable commitment to stop that would inspire more confidence in Iran's actual willingness to step away from nuclear weapons.
Think of this deal as a parole board deciding to let a violent felon walk free.
Their risk is, he might kill someone.
In this case, make that hundreds of thousands of someones.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
