By Steve Hynd
Last December I wrote: "it is already an accepted fact among the Very Serious Person set that Obama's idea of negotiation without preconditions will get exactly one shot, will fail, and then the bombs will begin to fall." Well, that looks to be the way events are turning.
Despite Iran not having made a definite response to the IAEA's offered deal on exporting a chunk of its LEU stockpile in return for MEU fuel cells for its research reactor - the latter actually being harder to convert into bomb-grade material - the press today is full of news that Obama is looking at further sanctions "within weeks". I'm sure he's being pressed on this by Democratic hawks, the kind who keep saying Iran is definitely seeking a nuclear weapon despite there still being no concrete evidence of any such thing. All we have so far, empirically, is a record of Iran hiding its nuclear program, a bunch of doubts about what Iran might still be hiding and a whole bunch of innuendo. There's no "smoking gun".
These are the same kind of hawkish Dems who said the same thing about Iraq and who are now gleefully backing a Congressional sanctions bill that might impose a naval blockade against Iran's oil imports that would be a war crime under international law without UNSC backing. Does anyone wonder that the IAEA's El Baradei says Iran has serious trust issues? But the UNSC isn't going to back anything more than cosmetic sanctions - veto-holder China will definitely not back more serious moves even if Russia does. Nor will India, the other regional tiger economy, help keep any sanctions: Iran is India's biggest source of oil.
The usual rightwing suspects are already making the next leap, from "Obama's predicatble failure" to the need to bomb Iran in order to save it. John Bolton said today that "we need to understand that there is no way to deal with nuclear weapons without regime change or force" and the Washington Times ran an editorial described by nuclear expert Joseph Cirincione as "sick".
Our message to the world leaders: If you want peace, prepare for war.
...The case for using force against Iran is growing more plausible as the threat intensifies. Compared to the 2002 case for war against Saddam Hussein, it is a slam-dunk.
That's the very definition of "low bar" - and Cirincione is correct, using the phrase "slam dunk" is sick, given its infamous use to justify Bush's spurious invasion of Iraq.
And yet, Iran signalled from word one that it was unhappy with the IAEA deal, especially after France shoe-horned its way in there in a spoiler move that had far more to do with its own geopolitical ambitions in the Gulf than any wish to see a deal completed. America, France and Russia have all reneged on nuclear deals with Iran in the past - Russia has just done so again at American urging - but the deal is still perhaps rescuable by substituting France and Russia for a less contentious partner, maybe Argentina or even India. Iran still wants to talk:
Speaking at a press conference in Vienna, Ali Asqar Soltanieh who was speaking with the press following the IAEA Board of Directors session allocated to discussions on outgoing Chief Muhammad ElBaradei's last report on Iran, in response to a question on the final outcome of Vienna talks and Iran's response regarding acquiring fuel for Tehran reactor, said, "Of course we need fuel, but we need guarantee about receiving the fuel."
He was quoted by the Islamic republic news agency as saying, "We are ready for the final round of talks, but we want 100 percent guarantee and the agency, too, must both supervise, and see into the implementation of the commitments made there."
Iran has also halted expansion of its uranium enrichment facility - perhaps a show of good faith. The much-hyped Qom facility turned out to be still a hole in a mountain and even the Iranian armed forces chief of staff says he favors some kind of deal. However, Iranian internal politics are no more monolithic than the American variety and Iran's "Green Movement" reformists have been just as obstructive as hardliners to any internal Iranian consensus.
The truth is that an international fuel consortium part-based on Iranian soil is the best way to bring Iran back into the mainstream of NPT-compliant nations, giving the West access and accountability while still giving Iran the safeguards it needs as well as earning it much-needed hard currency. Iran has reportedly suggested such a thing itself in the past - as part of one of the "grand bargains" Bush rejected out of hand during his eight years of mismanagement, at the UN in 2005 and again last year.
But in the rush to declare diplomacy over, that possibility hasn't even been on the table yet.
Washington Times - the Faux News of newsprint
ReplyDeleteSteve, there are problems with what Iran is and isn't doing now, too. You have to say, as we all do, that Iran's slowing down its enrichment program may be a show of good faith. It would make a lot of sense for them, whatever the reason for the slowdown, to present it as just that. But they don't, at least not in public.
ReplyDeleteLikewise their conflicting public statements by various officials. We can hope that they're being less confusing in private, but I don't see any indication of that.
Their problem may be internal, that a number of factions are fighting out the policy. But that's a problem for the rest of the world, too.
None of that is an excuse for bombing. But Obama is far from that, and if the report is correct that 40,000 troops will soak up all the US army in Afghanistan, there's a lot of motivation against yet another war.
It's Friday night so I'm feeling pretty bloody minded and, if not that real human beings - Persians - would be killed & wounded, I'd encourage the SP to step up the pressure on the loon fringe in both Israel & DC. The fall-out of bombing Iran might be spectacular to watch, from the side-lines of course along with the SP and the international loon fringe. I would particularly enjoy a new shtik from Obama justifying more mayhem. His well oiled performances of late have been just too repetitive, eh. I'm really hoping all the nonsense is simply USA-Thanksgiving pre shopping jitters so I don't have to watch any new fiasco, fubar, snafu operations and hear politicians sputtering non sequiturs as explanations for more havoc.
ReplyDeleteSteve I should have stated before my non-serious comment that I've slipped into a new non-serious environment. Sorry i should have noted this earlier but I've just now realized it. Nothing I say here or on my blog or on twitter needs to be considered other than as fluff. The world is far too complex for me to imagine yet comment on , eh.
ReplyDelete[Back to the whiskey he said heading out to the kitchen as he was waiting for Bill Moyers then Doc Martin.] To bad html hasn't yet adapted to filtering out square brackets before rendering a page, eh. Oh whatever.