Negotiating With Iran

When I heard that the U.S. reversed course and had decided to “come to the table” with Iran, I thought, uh oh, this is the last effort before Iran’s nuclear sites get bombed after the Presidential election. If nothing else, the State Department can shrug their shoulders and say, “We tried”, which is essentially what’s happening today. The New York Times Mike Nizza reports:

Last week, the United States’s decision to join those talks directly was seen as a “double policy shift” that could lead to a breakthrough. But a session on Saturday ended in deadlock.

The problem, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saw it this morning, was that Iran was not being serious. From The Associated Press:

“We expected to hear an answer from the Iranians but, as has been the case so many times with the Iranians, what came through was not serious,” Rice told reporters aboard her plane as she flew to the United Arab Emirates. “It’s time for the Iranians to give a serious answer.”

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As some readers may have gleaned already, it was a widely expected result. Hard-liners have long warned against negotiating with Iran, saying it was less than serious about resolving the nuclear issue. Others have hinted at the same concern as the talks have dragged on.

As an aside, check out this paragraph:

If Tehran’s professed civilian-only ambitions for their nuclear turned out to be false, as some suspect, the weapons they obtain would drastically upset the balance of power in the Middle East. If Israel decided it had to forcibly prevent that from happening (the widespread talk is of air strikes), that would probably derail the long, meandering talks between Iran and six global powers aimed at halting Iran’s uranium enrichment in exchange for a package of incentives. [emphasis added, -ed]

Good grief. Is there a person on the planet who believes that Iran has “civilian-only ambitions”? Iran with nukes would “upset the balace of power”? Ya think? I would guess that an obliterated Israel (Iran’s stated objective) would more than change the power, it’d probably change the terrain of the Middle East (literally), too. And, should Israel bomb Iran back to the stone ages, nuclear-wise, I’m guessing that the need for “incentives” would be gone, no? I mean, the problem is the nukes.

So will the pointy-heads be satisfied that enough “negotiation” happened when Iran gets bombed, their nuclear ambitions dashed for another couple decades? Doubtful. They won’t acknowledge Iran’s ambitions because to do so, they’d have to get “serious” about their analysis and policy positions.

Cross-posted at where I explain why America would be better if it was like Texas

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