President Barack Obama delivered a 50 minute address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24. Delegates from every nation joined together to reaffirm the founding vision of the institution: to create peace among the nations.
The president raised several issues, but what grabbed the attention of the American people was his statement that he was going to pursue better relations with Iran. This will be one of his goals for the remainder of his time in office, as well as focusing on the Israeli conflict.
“While these issues are not the cause of all the region’s problems, they have been a major source of instability for far too long, and resolving them can help serve as a foundation for a broader peace,” Obama said.
According to the official address transcript from the Washington Post, the United States and Iran have had several problems since the Islamic Revolution took place in 1979, which caused mistrust between the two nations. Iranians have had problems with the United States meddling in their affairs, while U.S. citizens see Iran killing U.S. troops and threatening Israel, our ally, with chaos and destruction.
Several UT students watched the general assembly and while some were enthusiastic about the U.S. making a step in the direction of peace, other students don’t feel as if it is something the U.S. should be involved in.
“I think that if the U.S. had better relations with Middle Eastern countries, it would be a step towards world peace. Since America is a very influential country with many allies, these good relations could spread to help achieve the world peace that we are striving for,” said Kayla Schmidt, a freshman marine biology major.
Obama has communicated with the leader of Iran, President Hassan Rouhani, and has stated the U.S.’s views on Iran’s development of nuclear weapons: that both countries should resolve it peacefully even though the U.S. is “determined to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” Obama said.
Along with clearing up the conflict with Iran, Obama would like to go further and possibly settle the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
“They are understandably cynical that real progress will ever be made, and they’re frustrated by their families enduring the daily indignity of occupation. But they, too, recognize that two states is the only real path to peace. Because just as the Palestinian people must not be displaced, the state of Israel is here to stay,” Obama said.
While students like Schmidt agreed that this plan would be beneficial, other students like Vitale Christy, junior writing and theater major, thought we would possibly create more conflicts than solutions.
“I think at this point the country is already in too deep with external affairs. Two very obvious examples are the atomic bombs and our outstanding debt with China. I think that the relationships we have with the Middle East are very rocky. The last thing we want is another war with the Middle East,” Christy said.
However, according to Doug Schoen, a contributor to Forbes, Obama has sent a weak message to the rest of the world. Schoen compares the Iranian address to the way Obama addressed Syria, which in his solution was ineffective especially when compared to President Vladimir Putin who handled the issue he had at hand during his address.
As conversations continue between these two countries, students plan to keep an eye on Obama to see if the decision he makes will help with the relations between several nations or if we might end up putting the U.S. on the wrong side of history.