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Source: http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/07/24/all-roads-lead-to-syria/
The Nuclear Deal Fallout
(American Interest) Walter Russell Mead - Is the nuclear deal just the first act in a longer drama of retreat, retrenchment, and accommodation as the U.S. hands the keys of the Persian Gulf to our new Shi'a friends? The appeasers, sorry, the accommodationists argue that if we are too tough on Iran now, they will walk away from the nuclear deal, and the U.S. will be face to face with the stark choice that the Obama administration has worked so hard to avoid: accept an Iranian bomb, or bomb Iran. The nuclear deal appears to be replete with mechanisms by which Iran could walk away from it without incurring the price of a snap-back of international sanctions or an interruption of the money rolling in. But unless Washington confronts Iran's regional ambitions on the ground, the nuclear deal could do more to destabilize the Middle East than it will to calm things down. The writer is professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College and professor of American foreign policy at Yale University.