Trust is a two-way street

Conservative hawks who are outraged at our "give-away" deal to Iran are saying that we can't trust Iran, that "we know" that they will cheat.

First, the deal is considered by experts on nuclear energy technology and by former inspectors for the International Atomic Inspection Agency to be unprecedented in comprehensiveness.   Yes, we had to give up surprise "anywhere/anytime" inspections.  But any enrichable supplies (uranium, plutonium) will be meticulously inventoried and tracked.   If they try to cheat, we will find out that they are doing it, even if it's being done in secret. 

And, second, we're also asking them to trust us -- and our record is not blameless. 

Remember Mohammed Mosaddegh, chosen in 1951 by Iran's parliament to be their prime minister.  He oversaw many progressive social reforms before he was ousted in a 1953 coup d'etat orchestrated by the CIA and England's M16 to restore Iranian oil to British companies.   This is the source of much of the anti-American feeling in Iran today.  It is not just, as conservatives would have it, that they hate our modernism.   We over-threw their government.

In addition, they well know of our exploitation of the inspection process in Iraq while Sadaam was still in power.   We used our authority to search for WMD to spy on their government and gain information that had nothing to do with hidden weapons but which had some useful information for us for other purposes.

So why would Iran trust us not to do the same with them now to learn their military and economic secrets?   Trust goes both ways.   The agreement asks them to rely completely on trusting us, while we have inspections and verification to substitute for trusting them.   How is it that we lost the diplomatic battle?

Being self-righteous and denouncing Iran as untrustworthy ignores our own history of untrustworthiness.

Ralph