The hand-wringing and high-fiving over the Iran deal has me a bit puzzled. No one really knows what’s in the deal. Even the parties to the deal are at odds over what is in the deal. They only agree that the deal is an agreement to strike a deal at some point in the future. The Americans take this to mean “soon,” while the Iranians have no understanding of the concept. Persia, in one form or another, has been around for five thousand years. “Soon” is measured in decades.

That has not stopped the 24×7 clown show that is the American media from having a food fight over the deal to make a deal. The Progressives are hailing the deal as the greatest achievement of man since the wheel. Conservative Inc is condemning the deal and calling Obama Chamberlain. They have a Nazi fetish, comparing every Muslim with a bad attitude to Hitler. I watched a bit of Fox yesterday and it was clear that none of them knew more than my cat about this deal, but they were certain they were right.

That’s how things work in a democracy. The people running things employ persuasive morons to sell their position to the persuadable morons. Arguing through a megaphone leaves only one option. The side that is the loudest wins. It’s why Progressives will work free of charge for a turn at the megaphone. They get it. Own the megaphone and the people will obey you. It’s why Jeb Bush is the smart bet in 2016. Everyone in the press says he is the frontrunner.

Putting all that aside, I looked up the deal in the foreign press and the best I can tell it is an agreement that slows down Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon and lifts the sanctions on them. The fact that every energy firm on earth is lining up to make a deal with the mullahs says the sanctions are sure to be lifted, no matter what Iran does or does not do. Western governments are the tools of their rich people and their business interests. Western business loves groveling to despots. It is their natural state.

From the point of view of Iran, negotiating with the great Satan is an easy call. There is little downside. The hardliners in Iran have a lot of power, but they have no constituency outside the ruling elite. Iran’s rulers have to respect their sensibilities, but that still leaves plenty of room to deal. Since they have no intention of abandoning their nuclear program, they only stand to gain. In short, if the West is willing to accept Iran’s terms, why not make the deal?

The West has different motives. The Europeans want that natural gas pipeline from the gulf to get done. The preferred pipeline around Iran to the west or east is simply unrealistic. Afghanistan will never be pacified and the eastern route runs into the Israeli problem. The most practical route is through Iran. While the Europeans are not in love with the idea of giving the Russians more leverage over their gas supplies, they can use that as a carrot in trying to fend off Russian aggression in the Baltic states and Ukraine.

The Americans are the key and Obama really wants this deal. It is easy to forget that Obama and his cult see him as the anti-Reagan. They used to pitch him as the Progressive Reagan back in 2008. The narrative did not work out as they planned, it never does, but this deal gives them a shot to fulfill part of the fantasy. Having Obama give a speech in Tehran would be the rejection of the Reagan policy toward Iran. It would also finally heal the wound to the pride of Progressives over Carter’s handling of the hostage crisis. The subtext of the Left’s celebration right now is “Carter was right after all.”

There’s also another bit going on here. The American empire is exhausted and most in Washington know it. Trillions have been spent trying to conquer the Muslim lands and we have nothing to show for it. Conquest only works if the booty exceeds the expense. The early expansion of Rome during the Republic was financed by the booty of the conquered. Once the Romans ran out of rich people to conquer, expansion ended and decline immediately started as the economics of empire reached the point of diminishing returns.

America is a rich country with a huge reserve so the blunders into Iraq and Afghanistan may not be as costly, but they could be and the more savvy people in Washington know it. They have looked around at the Middle East and determined that the entity with the best prospects over the next several decades is Iran so they are making a deal with them. The US will back off and the Iranians will keep the oil and gas flowing. If the Iranians decide they need nukes to do it, that will be worked out when it happens.

In theory, it is not a terrible plan. America needs out of the Muslim world. Whether or not it is a good idea to turn things over to the Persians remains to be seen, but history is on their side. They have been the dominant people in the region for 5,000 years, give or take. How the rest of the region responds is an unknown, but you can be sure the Saudis are in Pakistan offering whatever it takes to get a nuke of their own. The rest of the GCC is there with them.

There are also the demographics to consider. The last three American presidents have so badly bungled things in MENA, Europe is now facing a great wave of barbarian invaders to her south. Europe is as weak today as she was prior to the Muslim conquests. Maybe even weaker. There are a billion poor people to her south ready to head north. Iranian help in rebuilding the buffer zone in the Maghreb would go a long way toward forestalling the collapse of Europe.