generalspeaking

Buying, You Know, Time

"The roadblocks may prove to be too great, but I firmly believe the diplomatic path must be tested.
"Encouraged," (though) "conciliatory words will have to be matched by actions that are transparent and verifiable."
U.S. President Barack Obama, UN General Assembly

U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

"Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction have no place in Iran's security and defence doctrine, and contradict our fundamental religious and ethical convictions. Our national interests make it imperative that we remove any and all reasonable concerns about Iran's peaceful nuclear program."
Iranian President Hasan Rouhani - UN General Assembly

Hasan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, addresses the 68th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Brendan McDermid, Pool)

• Once boasted that he deceived the world by successfully hiding Iran's nuclear program.
• Selected as his Defense Minister the terrorist who engineered the attack on a Marine base which killed 241 American soldiers.
• Recently declared he will not give an inch on Iran's nuclear program.

Ah, of course, the world waiting on tenterhooks to hear the speech of the moderate new Iranian president. A soothing antidote to his predecessor. Who said what he meant in reflection of the Islamic Republic of Iran's intentions, giving the world an unpleasant dose of reality and labelling him in the process a 'radical'. The 'moderate' holds his counsel. And uses words wisely, as in haughtily informing an interlocutor that as he is not a historian he cannot make a statement on the verifiability of the Holocaust.

But as a nuclear specialist, one who acted as his Islamist party's chief nuclear negotiator for many years, chortling at his happy ability to gain useful time for the country's nuclear program to advance, from the trusting IAEA negotiators. He knows how to proceed, how to charm and how to reassure; cunning does it all. Will the freshly charmed and illuminated IAEA insist that Iran now accede to world demand that it:

• End further enrichment of uranium;
• Safely transfer enriched uranium outside Iran;
• Shut down its development facility located underground at Qom;
• Remove advanced centrifuges located at Natanz and install no additional centrifuges;
• End its development of plutonium, beginning with shutting down the heavy-water reactor located at Arak.

Nice to hear that Iran's national interests make it imperative that it remove concerns about its nuclear intentions, but will it? By, for example, observing the above list of practical, needful and required steps? One thinks not. Since, simply put, President Rouhani has stated on several occasions, firmly and with no intention to permit quibbling that Iran will proceed with its innocent plans to produce energy and medical isotopes, even with weapons-grade uranium.

President Rouhani demands in return ever so reasonably that the "violent" sanctions which have succeeded in doing great harm to the country's economy be removed. At the very least, as a sign of good faith. Did not the regime, after all, as a sign of good faith, release scores of Iranian prisoners of conscience from imprisonment?

Interesting that a mooted-about meeting between the two presidents did not, after all, take place. Not because the United States whose president believes in diplomacy, discussions, rational agreements, civility and trust over threats and demands decided the time was not yet right for a face-to-face meeting. No; because the Republic of Iran decided that such "heroic measures" were not yet feasible.

The quaint method of written communication will for now suffice.

And another president is left to stew helplessly as he sees the reassurances he was counting on to aid his country to surmount difficulties imposed upon it by the Iranian regime, vanish in the fever of an illusion. "This is precisely the Iranian intention, to talk and buy time in order to advance its ability to achieve nuclear weapons", said a distracted Benjamin Netanyahu.

Labels: Controversy, Hypocrisy, Iran, Nuclear Technology, United Nations, United States

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, September 26, 2013