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It is a great victory for Obama in his fading days, but the Republicans, Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia will be sorely disappointed.Clenched fist aimed at Great Satan loosens
- Obama's chance to live up to early Nobel
A girl holds an Iranian flag during celebrations in Tehran.
On the day he took office, President Barack Obama reached out to America's enemies, offering in his first inaugural address to "extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist".
More than six years later, he has arrived at a moment of truth in testing that proposition with one of America's most intransigent adversaries.
The framework nuclear agreement he reached with Iran yesterday did not provide the definitive answer to whether Obama's audacious gamble will pay off. The fist Iran has shaken at the so-called Great Satan since 1979 has not completely relaxed.
But the fingers are loosening, and the agreement, while still incomplete, held out the prospect that it might yet become a handshake.
For a President whose ambitions to remake the world have been repeatedly frustrated, the possibility of a reconciliation after 36 years of hostility between Washington and Tehran now seems tantalisingly within reach, a way to be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize that even he believed was awarded prematurely.
Yet the deal remains unfinished and unsigned, and critics worry that he is giving up too much while grasping for the illusion of peace.
"Right now, he has no foreign policy legacy," said Cliff Kupchan, an Iran specialist who has been tracking the talks as chairman of the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm. "He's got a list of foreign policy failures. A deal with Iran and the ensuing transformation of politics in West Asia would provide one of the more robust foreign policy legacies of any recent presidencies. It's kind of all in for Obama. He has nothing else. So for him, it's all or nothing."
As Obama stepped into the Rose Garden to announce what he called a historic understanding, he seemed both relieved that it had come together and combative with those in Congress who would tear it apart.
While its provisions must be translated into writing by June 30, he presented it as a breakthrough that would, if made final, make the world a safer place, the kind of legacy any President would like to leave. "This has been a long time coming," he said.
Obama cited the same John F. Kennedy quote he referenced earlier in the week when visiting a new institute dedicated to the former President's brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy: "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."
The sense of celebration was captured by aides standing nearby in the Colonnade who exchanged fist bumps at the end of the President's remarks.
But Obama will have a hard time convincing a sceptical Congress, where Republicans and many Democrats are deeply concerned that he has grown so desperate to reach a deal that he is trading away American and Israeli security.
If Congress kills the deal, Obama said, "then it's the United States that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy".
An agreement with Iran remains the most promising goal left in a foreign policy agenda that has unravelled since Obama took office. Rather than building a new partnership with Russia, he faces a new cold war.
Rather than ending the war in Iraq, he has sent American forces back to fight the Islamic State, though primarily from the air. Rather than defeating al Qaida, he finds himself chasing its offshoots. Rather than forging peace in West Asia, he said recently that is beyond his reach.
Obama still aspires to reorient American foreign policy more towards Asia, and a pending Pacific trade pact could have a lasting impact if he can seal the deal and push it through Congress. He has nudged the world, particularly China, towards more action on climate change. He will count the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba after a half-century of estrangement as a major achievement.
But with so many disappointments, Iran has become something of a holy grail of foreign policy to Obama, one that could hold the key to a broader reordering of a region that has bedevilled American presidents for generations. Aides say he has spent more time on Iran than any other foreign policy issue except Afghanistan and terrorism.
Clenched fist aimed at Great Satan loosens
This will surely bring the heat down in international tensions. but could it lead to more given that the Republicans, Israel, Russians and Saudi Arabia will find fresh reasons to ratchet up their own strategic interests to suit their own political goals?