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When Did America Forget that It's America?

(Washington Post) Natan Sharansky - On a number of occasions during the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, the Israeli government has appealed to the U.S. to demand a change in Tehran's aggressive behavior. If Iran wishes to be treated as a normal state, Israel has said, then it should start acting like one. Unfortunately, these appeals have been summarily dismissed. Compare this approach to that of the U.S. during its decades-long negotiations with the Soviet Union, which at the time was a global superpower and an existential threat to the free world. The Soviet regime felt obliged to abandon its doctrine of fomenting a worldwide communist revolution simply to enter into negotiations with the U.S. about economic cooperation. Yet today, Iran feels no need to tone down its rhetoric calling for the death of America and wiping Israel off the map. By contrast, apparently no amount of belligerence on Iran's part can convince the free world that Tehran has disqualified itself from the negotiations or the benefits being offered. When American negotiations with the Soviets reached the issue of trade, the Senate, led by Democrat Henry Jackson, insisted on linking economic normalization to Moscow's allowing freedom of emigration. The White House joined Congress in making the Soviets' treatment of dissidents a central issue in nearly every negotiation. Iran's dismal human rights record, by contrast, has gone entirely unmentioned in the recent negotiations. Even this superficial comparison shows that what the U.S. saw fit to demand back then from the most powerful and dangerous competitor it had ever known is now considered beyond the pale in its dealings with Iran. The U.S. appears to have lost the courage of its convictions. The writer, a human rights activist and former political prisoner in the Soviet Union, is chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
2015-04-20 00:00:00
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