April 16, 2015: Germany, Japan, Cuba & Iran

They bombed Pearl Harbor and after we defeated them in World War II, with great loss of life and limb as American's invaded island after bloody island in the Pacific, after just few years of occupation, Japan became one of our closest allies.

They invaded and conquered most of Western Europe; exterminated more than 6.0 million Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies; and mercilessly bombed civilian populations in England and elsewhere. After we entered the war, they killed more than 300,000 U.S. soldiers. And yet, again, after the allies defeated them and after just a relatively few years of occupation, with our help Germany was rebuilt and became one of our closest allies.

As with Japan, this relationship endures.

So why is there such a big problem with Cuba and Iran?

We were versions of allies with both until 1959 when Fidel Castro seized power and quickly thereafter announced that Cuba was in fact a client state of our Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union. And, in Iran's case, we related well (perhaps too complicitously) until 1979 when the Islamic Revolution erupted and the new government, dominated by ayatollahs, captured and held hostage 66 American embassy workers.

Now, via his executive power, President Obama is moving rapidly to resume normal diplomatic relations with Cuba and there is evidence that Iran wants to make a deal with the West by agreeing to scale back its nuclear weapons program.

The former, normalized relations with Cuba, is long overdue and now all but certain to occur. The most significant resistance to such a deal is the demagogic posturing of presidential candidate Marco Rubio, whose parents were born in Cuba, and his pandering to the remnants of the Cuban-American community in the hope that they and other American Latinos will rally to support his ambitions.

There are also Cold-War-minded dead-enders who are still fighting the Soviets through its former proxy, Cuba.

Then of course there is the on-going resistance to anything Barack Obama wants to do, especially if it is potentially historic and would burnish his image as president.

Much more troubling is the widespread opposition among virtually all Republicans, and sadly many Democrats, who oppose the semblance of any deal with Iran, out of fear that they will be smitten politically by the Israeli lobby or yelled at by Benjamin Netanyahu.

If things were not to work out with Cuba, it would not be catastrophic. They are not strategic players and are no longer military allies of the Russians. No Soviet missiles with atomic warheads remain on the island and they are not in any way a threat to our security.

But unless the West is able to consummate a deal with Iran it is likely that we will be maneuvered into a war with them, siding with the Israelis and egged on by congressional hawks and passionate evangelical supporters of Israel. So this is quite serious and should not be a venue for political striving and demonologizing.

If we managed to overcome our hatred for the Japanese and Nazis and established sound and enduring relations with them, we should be able to do something similar with Cuba and especially Iran. But it is very much a we'll-see situation.