'Rather than put our nation's top diplomats on trial while micromanaging their every move, Congress should join them and our country's finest national security leaders in safeguarding the deal that has been achieved. It would be foolish for Congress to jeopardize a good deal that freezes and rolls back the most urgent proliferation concerns of Iran's nuclear program with unreasonable demands.
'Our diplomats must be empowered with the maneuvering room to strike a comprehensive agreement to guard against a nuclear-armed Iran and war. If presidents and diplomats of the past were subject to the same restraints that some in Congress have tried to impose on the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran, it surely would have compromised Reagan's negotiations with Gorbachev, Nixon's talks with Mao, and perhaps even Kennedy's diplomatic outreach to Khrushchev.
'This deal is an unprecedented step forward to peacefully resolving the standoff over Iran's nuclear program. It's time for Congress to support our negotiators to ensure that this deal and the long-term agreement that follows it is a success.'
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, distinguished
adjunct professor of government and public
policy at the College of William and Mary.
During a 31-year career in the US army,
served as chief of staff to US
Secretary of State Colin Powell
Kate Gould, legislative associate for Middle
East policy at the Friends Committee on
National Legislation and board member
of Churches for Middle East Peace.
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