Let me finish tonight with this.
Just when you think all is lost.
Until a few days ago, I had the feeling that war with Iran was inevitable. Not just an American attack on Iran, but war – a long-term, violent conflict on several fronts, with Americans and others getting killed in terrorist attacks all over the place.
I thought this war was coming (a) because I didn’t think Iran would stop its rush to build nuclear weapons and (b) because I didn’t believe – and still don’t – that a US attack on Iran would end with that – it would trigger a war – with the other side deciding when to end it – and with the people of Iran uniting behind their government in opposition to those they would see as the aggressors. It’s not that we would see it that way, but they would.
So, for now, there is more than a glimmer of hope that the newly-elected president of Iran – Rouhani – has it in his hands to begin the slow, careful rapproachment between our two countries.
The good news is the recognition on both sides of what the bottom line has to be: President Obama has said we cannot permit Iran to build a nuclear weapon.
I have to believe, communication being what it is, that Rouhani – and even the top religious leaders know this.
So here we go – on the road to hope that the United States will not have to go to war.
I much prefer to be on that road than the other one – the one we were on so dangerously and so recently
Chris Matthews