Recent letters (“Dealings with Iran feel like a familiar appeasement,” July 18; “Nothing comical about imperiled Israel,” July 27) condemn out of hand the accord reached between Iran and the United States and its allies aimed at keeping nuclear weapons out of the Iranian government’s hands.

I, for one, applaud the tenacity and vision of President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and the team of people who’ve put in place an agreement to verifiably stop the means by which the Iranians can produce such a weapon.

In support of my position, I offer these quotes:

n“The door to Iran opens,” by Roger Cohen (New York Times, July 16): “So what do the critics … seek in place of the deal with Iran that verifiably blocks Tehran’s path to a nuclear weapon for at least the next 10 or 15 years? Presumably, they want what would have happened if negotiations had collapsed. That would be renewed war talk as an unconstrained Iran installs sophisticated centrifuges, its stockpile of enriched uranium grows, Russia and China abandon the sanctions regime, moderates in Iran like Foreign Minister Mohammad Iavad Zarif are sidelined, and a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic draws closer.

“To favor such peril, when a constructive alternative exists that engages one of the most highly educated societies in the Middle East, amounts to foolishness dressed as masochism.”

n“The special Ramadan feast,” The Economist, July 18: “All sides in the negotiation insist that the accord is limited to resolving the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, at least temporarily. But all believe it is about much more than uranium-enrichment centrifuges and the modalities of inspections, important as these may be. The potential to normalize relations between Iran and America, embittered since the revolution, could change the balance of power in the Middle East, transform America’s role and perhaps, change the course of Iran’s politics.”

Roger W. Addor

Scarborough

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