Fred Kaplan on the Iran nuclear deal.
And read Peter Beinart. He strikes a chord with me when he writes, "In life, what matters most isn't how a decision compares to your ideal outcome. It's how it compares to the alternative at hand."
I'm a big believer in that. Increasingly as I get older, I get annoyed by harsh criticisms that are unaccompanied by alternatives. It's fine to say, "I don't think this will work but I don't have anything better to offer at the moment." It's not fine, at least with me, to say, "This idea stinks and it will be an utter and total disaster and whoever thought of it is a moron…" and then to not have at least some of a better plan to offer in its stead. Or to offer an impossible, impractical alternative. Anyone can say, "That sucks."
What Beinart calls "ideal outcomes" are not always possible in this world of ours. "Best possible outcomes" usually are possible and the trick is to get to them. In deciding on a plan of action, there needs to come a point where the idealism and the fairy tales cease and you deal in realism.
I have no idea what we should be doing in Iran…and we're all in luck because I have no say in the decision. If the options are doing nothing, going to war and making a deal, making a deal sure sounds like the best of the three to me. Then it becomes a question of what's the best possible deal? I don't know if we got it but I do know that a lot of people love to say of any deal, "It's not good enough."
Tomorrow, if you sold your broken-down old car for twenty million dollars, someone would tell you you sold out too quickly. You could have gotten thirty million. People love to do that kind of thing…especially when they're running against you for public office.