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Readers write: support for diplomacy with Iran, US shouldn't fight Mideast battles

Letters to the editor for the March 30, 2015 issue of the weekly magazine.

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Brian Snyder/AP
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, center, walks away after talks with United States Secretary of State John Kerry in Lausanne, Switzerland, Tuesday March 17, 2015.

Support for diplomacy with Iran
Diplomacy with Iran is the only sensible solution to solving the nuclear problem. Recent events, such as Republican Sen. Tom Cotton’s letter to Iranian leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s untimely address to Congress, and motions for legislation that would undermine the current negotiations, have created a huge controversy over the Iran deal. The problem is that opponents of this deal have offered no other alternatives to a diplomatic agreement.

Instead of trying to sabotage the negotiation process, members of Congress should instead be working toward a comprehensive agreement with Iran before they become responsible for yet another crisis in the Middle East. I urge members of the Senate and Congress to support diplomacy with Iran and to abstain from voting on legislation that could compromise the negotiation process. This is the only chance we have to peacefully prevent a 10th nuclear weapons state.
Michael Shores
Tempe, Ariz.

US shouldn’t fight Mideast battles
A majority of Americans now believe that the United States must continue to provide American lives and money to the fight against Islamic State. The usual reasons given are to stop IS’s horrendous acts and to protect the US from future terrorist attacks. But the paradox, which we must face up to, is that by our continuing to war against Muslim fighters, young Muslims will be even more motivated to join Islamic terrorist groups.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey’s government, and Qatar, which favor a fundamentalist version of Sunni Islam, are continuing their life-and-death struggle against Shiites, their centuries-old enemies, exemplified by the present governments of Syria and Iran. And now IS fighters, some would say the Saudis’ proxies, are engaged in a brutal war directed primarily against Shiites. But Americans need to realize that this is not our fight.
It is clearly in our best interests to leave the fighting in the Middle East to the people of that region.
Andrew Mills
Lower Gwynedd, Pa.

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Mark Sappenfield
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Dear Reader,

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