Exodus from Chinatown?

A Friday morning think-about,
to clear the air for the week-
end. We've seen enough now to
go through the checklist of a
unified opposition to the arms
control accord with Iran, why
opposition is focused on the
United States, and why opposi-
tion will fail in the United
States. This is a sorry tale 
of transparent cynicism, man-
ipulating unreasonable fear
for power grabs, willing to
ignore the national interest
in rational conduct. Once out
of the Cold War, we remember
how frantic the Right was to
transfer its reliance on pan-
ic to a new hitching post. It
is, after all, how it feeds.

In recent days a crescendo of
co-ordinated invective has fo-
cused upon the President's
speech at American University,
exposing these underpinnings.
Our most warlike newspaper,
The Washington Post, while al-
ready grudgingly approving 
the pact, has lent the loud-
est chorus of columnist par-
tisans to these consolation
prices of the Right Wing. No
curious person has bothered
to examine the conduct of
Fox News in the matter. It
takes a respectable paper
to sustain a sordid system.

All of this invective is
focused on obtaining a high
domestic political price, for
a settled certainty that this
accord will be implemented. 
The participation of the gov-
ernment of Israel in the ca-
bal has been disturbing, but
widely advertised and there-
fore discounted, as our own
social climbing money bund-
lers, burgling our politics. 

The realities have sunk in:

1. The sanctions régime has
succeeded in producing an
accord of unprecedented 
stringency and triphammer
"snap-back," and it natur-
ally expires, as gainful
yeasts of fermentation.
Humpty-Dumpty has rightly
come to a good but certain
end. The Right, of all in-
terests, knows this better
than anyone. Business with
Iran will resume, with or
without the United States,
but at devastating cost to
world stability without the
United States. Every econ-
omy on earth has positioned
itself accordingly.

2. There will not, we know,
be any resumption of negotia-
tion with Iran. There would
only be an accord America ab-
rogated, to the peril of the
rest of the world, including
its nearest and dearest ally
in the region. What angers
Likud is not this pact, it's
that its resistance to inter-
national demands for coming
to terms with Palestine has
isolated its voice. Is this
why Thomas Friedman at The
Times was seen to be trial-
ing a balloon of military 
trinkets and renewed blood 
oaths to palliate the beast?
That can only fail, where a
a right wing's molecular ne-
cessity (gaudily touted as
Existential) is hypertension.
The beast cannot abide the
very guarantees it demands, 
because it can never declare
what it needs.

3. No wonder, then, Democrats
who must prosper by opposing
the pact come forth dripping
in profiles of piety and pro-
jections of treachery. The
chance that any of them will
permit the over-ride of the
President's veto of a resolu-
tion of disapproval is nil.
They just want a good price,
and the more powerful among
them snatch it for themselves.
Odd tributes, when you think
about it, to a lame duck.

The President's Party ought
to begin to figure out how
to live with triumph. Cuba
should have helped, climate
regulation further showed
the way. This is larger than 
leaving Mobile, and its Mem- 
phis blues behind. If not an
exodus from Chinatown, it's
a damn fine rinsing of our
streets.

Roman Polanski