WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE JCPOA

Deal Worth The Effort“The seven-nation agreement aimed at halting Iran’s progress toward a nuclear arsenalhas been criticized as merely delaying the inevitable, but that ignores the value ofdelay. Delay can buy valuable time to shape relationships and make better deals thatmight prevent the apparently inevitable from ever happening. Ultimately, the successof the pact won’t be decided by those who negotiated it or the leaders of the countriesthey represented. It will be decided by the people of Iran, who have endured years ofeconomic sanctions imposed on their repressive regime to reach this point. It will be upto the Iranian people to let the ayatollahs who rule their country know in no uncertainterms that they don’t want an atomic bomb if it means going back to the shortages anddeprivations the sanctions caused.”– The Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/15/15Is The Agreement Perfect? Certainly Not, But It Is Far Better Than Allowing IranTo Fester In Dangerous Isolation.“The ball actually will be in the court of Democrats. Once Congress has the accord inwriting, it has 60 days to review it. Mr. Obama has promised to veto any measure thatwould scuttle the deal, so persuading his fellow Democrats to go along will be key inpreventing an override. The response so far has been cautious. Even a rejection by theUnited States, however, would not necessarily mean the entire agreement would bescrapped. China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom all are partiesto it, so the Iranian market could be opened to their companies and investors evenwithout the United States. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised theaccord, and the U.N. Security Council is expected to vote as early as next Tuesday on aresolution that spells out the steps toward lifting sanctions. Is the agreement perfect?Certainly not, but it is far better than allowing Iran to fester in dangerous isolation.”– Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 7/15/15