Nov 25, 2013 3 min read

After the partial shutdown of the federal government, the bungled rollout of the health care law and a growing chorus of questions about his management style and leadership, the diplomatic breakthrough with Iran over the weekend that would have the United States’ longtime nemesis Iran ratchet down its nuclear program is surely a welcome piece of news for President Barack Obama.

And it’s welcome news for the rest of us, as well. After a decade that has seen two wars in the Middle East end in stalemate and a near-miss in Syria, the American public has little or no appetite for further intervention in that part of the globe.

If Iran had been able to reach the point where it could have manufactured and deployed a nuclear weapon, the likelihood that we would have been forced to step in was strong.

This is also an encouraging sign that Iran is, at long last, willing to engage with the United States and the rest of the world and start a reform process that will allow its citizens greater freedom and make it a more amenable player on the world stage.

Almost 35 years after the overthrow of the Shah and the arrival of hard-line, theocratic rulers who regularly denounced America – and modernity in general – as being the handiwork of Beelzebub, the willingness of Iran’s recently elected President Hassan Rouhani to engage constructively with the United States and other western nations is a development that could have important and long-lasting implications.

The accord, crafted along with Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, would have Iran temporarily halt the enrichment of uranium above 5 percent, that being the level to which it is typically enriched for reactors.

Among a host of other demands, it would also subject the country to a stringent inspection regime by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The deal, brokered in Geneva Saturday, will be in place for six months, while a long-term deal is finalized. In exchange, the Iranians are getting partial relief on the sanctions that have handicapped their economy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been spoiling for a fight with Iran, denounced the agreement as a “historic mistake,” and hawks on these shores have been dusting off their comparisons of Obama to Neville Chamberlain, the hapless British premier who declared “peace in our time” after making a pact with Adolf Hitler on the eve of World War II. But the effectiveness of a military strike against Iran would have been questionable, and it would have raised the temperature in the region considerably, as well as nixing the chance of a settlement that could have been reached through negotiation.

During the remembrances of President John F. Kennedy last week, it was frequently noted that Kennedy exercised restraint in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, even as some of his advisers and fellow lawmakers were pressing for a strike against Cuba and the Soviets.

Though the stakes would not have been as high in a standoff with Iran, the principle remains the same – lobbing rockets should be a last resort.

While we will not soon be joining hands with the Iranians for a chorus of “Kumbaya,” that they will not have a nuclear arsenal to play with anytime soon is one less headache in a region that has provided more than enough of those for America.