Canny politicians know it is impossible to please everyone all of the time. This must be clear to US President Barack Obama in the wake of the nuclear deal reached with Iran. Even as he heralded the accord as a harbinger of a 'more hopeful world', Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried it as a 'stunning historical mistake'.
Democrats in the US Senate have since won an initial victory, defeating a Republican resolution to block the deal in Congress. However, highlighting the contentiousness of the agreement, Democrats have had to vote down another Republican push. Meanwhile, the Vatican has come out in support of the accord.
The nuclear deal is a result of 18 months of hard diplomatic negotiation, but for the naysayers it means that Iran is off the leash and set to run rampant. Netanyahu claims the deal allows Iran to pursue a program of 'aggression and terror'. He tweeted that Iran intends to take over the entire planet.
Such statements play to stereotypes of an irrational, expansionist Iran, but Canadian scholar Thomas Juneau argues Iran presents little conventional military threat. Its military hardware is outdated and its defence spending dwarfed by that of its neighbours Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel, let alone the US.
It is notable that Netanyahu's apprehensions about the deal are not shared by all Jews. In August, a group of 340 US-based rabbis wrote to Congress pressing lawmakers to endorse the deal.
Meanwhile, members of America's military establishment, who might be expected to adopt a hawkish stance, have also come out in support of the agreement. A group of retired generals published an open letter highlighting the necessity of giving 'the diplomatic path a chance'. Leading American scientists have backed the deal, too.
The agreement doesn't magically make everything alright between Iran, its neighbours and the US, and it doesn't instantly solve Iran's internal ills. But it has undoubtedly shifted dynamics in the Middle East. For the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu the change is for the worse. Others see things differently.
Notably, the nuclear accord is the first example in a many a long year where an apparently intractable problem in the Middle East has been solved through discussion rather than degenerating into conflict.
Kayhan Barzegar, from SOAS in London, sees this as a harbinger of a more cooperative era in the region, so that 'collective action ... will be strengthened'. He foretells a decrease in the 'existing mutual sense of threat' between