Obama's Campaign Promise

In making the deal with Iran, Obama fulfilled the most important promise he made during the 2008 campaign:

I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.

Obama's supporters have often measured his behavior as president against this pledge and found him wanting, especially his enthusiasm for drone warfare. But the Iran deal is exactly the opposite of the Iraq war. In this instance Obama renounced the fantasy of a military "solution," the idea that toughness, courage and force could achieve what diplomacy could not. Bush and his people were captured by that fantasy. The believed that "Shock and Awe" could end decades of failed governments and failed policies and radically remake the Middle East. They were wrong.

If the Iran deal succeeds, it will go a long way toward pushing violent fantasies out of the political mainstream and restoring sanity to our expectations. I want a bumper sticker that says,

SUPPORT OUR DIPLOMATS