Appeasing Iran
"We continue to be focused on reaching a good deal, the right deal, that closes off any paths that Iran could have toward fissile material for a weapon and that protects the world from the enormous threat that we all know a nuclear-armed Iran would pose."
"[If talks are successful, the deal being negotiated will] achieve the goal of proving that Iran's nuclear program is and will remain peaceful."
"No one has presented a more viable lasting alternative for how you actually prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
Try serious, uncompromising and ongoing sanctions; they hurt quite usefully.
Mr. Kerry's upbeat assurances contrast sharply with that of an American official speaking anonymously in accord with State Department rules who gave a more sobering assessment in stating the March first-stage agreement as "an understanding that's going to have to be filled out with lots of detail", before reaching the final target date of June. From optimistic cheerfulness to the recognition of reality's painful difficulties.
Mr. Kerry's overstatements as opposed to the devil that resides in those bedevilling details.
It is the details that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is skilled in, however, in doing the bidding of his theocratic masters who see no roadblocks steering them away from their stated goal that cannot be overcome by sheer persistence and sly promises never meant to be honoured. For this is what Islam permits its faithful; to achieve a goal they are permitted to engage in circumlocution, falsehoods, promises never meant to be kept.
And the ancient practise of Al-taqiyya equals dissimulation; time-honoured, and as the Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated time and again, it works. On the other hand, if Grand Ayatollah Khamenei is as morbidly ill as his emergency trip to hospital might suggest, perhaps if it were not for the fact that the Iranian Republican Guard elite are in control of the nuclear program, a different end could conceivably result.
The sheer doggedness that it takes through diplomatic finessing of haggling for advantage, while appearing to make sacrifices in the
On November 24 at the discussion of extensions, Philip Hammond, British foreign secretary representing one of the five powers allied with the United States at the negotiating talks, said he had an expectation of "an agreement on substance" by March. The time in between March and June would be a continuation of negotiating details only "if necessary ... to finalize any possible remaining technical and drafting work"; in view of recent events with the talks not yet accomplishing anything of value, an attitude that should be recognized for its over-optimism.
Now, it seems, President Barack Obama will make a final assessment on whether to continue the talks into June once he has been able to evaluate the assessment from U.S. negotiators of what has been achieved up to mid-March. Precious little, it would seem; canny Tehran knows with whom it deals, and it knows also the concern that the White House has to conclude an agreement that it can hold up to the world with ostensible triumph in success, even though it will merely front a failure to have Iran agree to wrap up its nuclear ambitions.
Perhaps Tehran has viewed Libyan Moammar Ghadaffi's surrender of his nuclear program in view of the Iraq invasion on the pretense of destroying nuclear know-how there, and weighed what happened to that tyrant in the aftermath of his acquiescing to Western demands, and his fate thereafter, even though he became an assist to the West in its conflict against extremist Islamists. The speech to Congress by Benjamin Netanyahu gave fresh impetus to congressional critics anticipating lenient terms given to Iran in Obama's anxiety to come up a winner on the issue.
In addressing Congress and stressing that the agreement taking shape is nothing less than steeply dangerous, allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons, Mr. Netanyahu spoke nothing less than the unadorned reality of the situation. Republicans are busily attempting to have legislation introduced last week passed, to give Congress some measure of control over the deal, and they have a slight majority of American opinion behind them.
After meeting with Iran's foreign minister at Montreux, the next stop for Mr. Kerry was Saudi Arabia, to attempt the challenge of explicating the potential deal to Saudi Arabia's monarch King Salman, and then to consult foreign ministers from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Qatar won't be a problem. Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations view Iran's hegemonic sectarian ambitions and nuclear advances with abhorrence and trepidation.
But Mr. Obama must have his legacy project intact for his future presidential library, which will feature his success in disentangling the United States from international affairs extending from eastern Europe to the Middle East and the Far East.
Labels: Compromise, Iran, Negotiations, Nuclear Technology, Sanctions, United States
posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 06, 2015
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