{"id":217518,"date":"2016-01-20T00:46:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T00:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/toward-a-more-subtle-us-foreign-policy\/"},"modified":"2016-01-20T00:46:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T00:46:23","slug":"toward-a-more-subtle-us-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/toward-a-more-subtle-us-foreign-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Toward a More Subtle US Foreign Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Largely because Israel\u2019s right-wing government now considers Iran the great enemy and has a fonder view of Saudi Arabia, U.S. politicians and media have followed that lead, decrying Iranians and tolerating Saudis, but such simplistic thinking does not serve American interests well, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.<\/p>\n

By Paul R. Pillar<\/p>\n

The dramatic and fast-moving events in U.S.-Iranian relations over the past few days underscore, among other lessons, the following two. One is that results matter. No matter how hard the naysayers have striven to say nay, they have offered no alternative to actual U.S. policy that could have yielded results as favorable.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not as if there hasn\u2019t been ample experience to test what alternatives might have done. With regard to Iran\u2019s nuclear program, years of nothing but pressure and sanctions brought only years of an expanding program with ever more centrifuges spinning. It was only through engagement, negotiation and compromise that the most strenuous restrictions on, and monitoring of, a national nuclear program that have ever been negotiated were achieved.<\/p>\n

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