The Iran Deal Wasn't Revolutionary

FOREIGN POLICY

BY ROBIN WRIGHT

Those clarion pivots – Nelson Mandela's walk to freedom or the fall of the Berlin Wall – are enchanting. It's tempting simply to credit a visionary leader, the human spirit, or a historical trajectory. Change, however, is often foggier. It takes a convergence of causes also selfish, crudely commercial, strategically pragmatic, and more reactive than altruistic. In apartheid South Africa and the communist states of Eastern Europe, isolating societies and economies indefinitely proved too expensive, too impractical, too unsustainable. After a war that killed millions of people, Washington and Hanoi restored relations over the economic lures of New Asian markets for America and of foreign investment for Vietnam. Despite enduring ideological differences, they also shared a common fear of a rising China.

Link to the article