During the last decade both the Obama administration and its predecessor went down the garden path with Iran several times. Yet every time Washington believed the Islamist regime was finally embracing diplomacy and that a solution to the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions was imminent, the ayatollahs pulled the rug out from under its gullible Western adversaries. This has happened so many times that one would think it would be impossible for the Iranians to pull off this trick again, but it appears that the United States is about to play Charlie Brown to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Lucy Van Pelt and her football again.
Using its usual anonymous sources within the Obama administration, the New York Times is claiming that Iran has sent a clear signal to the West that it is ready negotiate about its nuclear program. The paper reports that according to unnamed government officials Iran has slowed down its enrichment of uranium in recent months. The use of what is described as a “significant amount” of material for a small medical reactor may affect Iran’s nuclear timetable. This has led the U.S. to believe that the Iranians are sending a signal to the West that they are ready to negotiate rather than to continue to stonewall the world on the issue:
One American official said the move amounted to trying to “put more time on the clock to solve this,” characterizing it as a step “you have to assume was highly calculated, because everything the Iranians do in a negotiation is highly calculated.”
No doubt it was calculated, but there is plenty of reason to doubt that calculation has anything to do with a desire to negotiate an end to their program—the goal that President Obama said was the only sort of compromise he would accept during his foreign policy debate with Mitt Romney.
The diversion to the medical reactor was reportedly the reason why Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak thought that the deadline for stopping Iran had been moved back to late spring/early summer 2013. But since even according to these estimates Iran will have enough fuel for a weapon in only a few months, that doesn’t really alter President Obama’s dilemma.
The international sanctions imposed on Iran have created a great deal of pain for ordinary Iranians but haven’t altered the regime’s determination to press ahead toward a nuclear weapon one jot. The increased pace of enrichment and the move of most of their material to a hardened underground mountain facility at Fordow have been a flagrant demonstration of the regime’s contempt for the West’s calls for them to stop. In this context, the diversion to the medical reactor seems more like a tactical move designed to generate more U.S. confidence in diplomacy—boosted by articles in the Times—then a strategic decision to back away from their nuclear goal. If so, it has achieved exactly what they wanted at the cost of only a slight delay in their schedule.
So long as the administration and its European allies are convinced their diplomatic efforts have hope—no matter how faint or unrealistic that hope might be—the Iranians can rest assured that there is little danger of the president making good on his promise to do whatever it is necessary in order to forestall this threat.
After so many examples in recent years of Iran gulling the West on this issue, it is difficult to understand why the administration would even think about falling for the same trick again. The only possible reason to grasp onto such a hope would be the fact that neither the president nor any of his current foreign policy team or their second-term replacements are really interested in a confrontation with Tehran even over an issue as serious as this.
That’s why, as was the case in the past with similar diplomatic dead-ends pursued by first the George W. Bush administration and then its successor, a willingness to believe in the possibility of a diplomatic opening with Iran has more to do with a desire to punt on the issue rather than any sincere belief that a deal is even possible. It remains to be seen whether President Obama really means what he says about keeping all options on the table if diplomacy with Iran conclusively fails. But so long as his administration is determined to fall for every Iranian deception, there is little likelihood that promise will ever be put to the test until it is already too late to do anything about the threat.
more total horse hockey. n n nof course, we're going to be open to Iran negotiating to end its nuclear weaponry development program. n nit beats the heck out of having to go to war. n nand talking to them helps us and costs us nothing. n nall this post amounts to is some yutz saying that we shouldn't talk to them because they're not sincere……… n nas if anyone needed to be reminded that the Iranian regime are liars…….. n nhowever, if we don't talk to them, then we can't accept their surrender…should it be in the offing.
Just like the British talking to a certain German leader beat the heck out of going to war. Ask the British what it cost them. Don't even bother to ask the Poles or the Czechs.
simply a silly attempt at comparison….accepting surrender isn't QUITE the same as yourself surrendering. n nthe proper comparison is with Cordell Hull's daily meetings with the Japanese negotiators. n
If you think Iran has any intention of surrendering and is not simply playing for time by playing Obama for a sucker, I have a business proposition that will interest you that arrived by email from the widow of a former high official in the Nigerian government, who needs to process some contract payments thru your bank account.
I certainly don't think that Iran's vile regime wants to surrender, but they may get pressed to the point where they may have to try for a face-saving deal where they do surrender the nuclear weapons program rather than lose control of the Iranian people. n nthey're thoroughly disgusting but are being squeezed and have to make tough choices.
Even a well-informed layman is in Plato's cave when it comes to Iran's nuclear program. (One hopes our intelligence agencies are doing better). But is certainly troublesome when the Iranians defy UN bans and enrich uranium far beyond what's necessary for a commercial or even a medical research reactor. It is even more troublesome when they engage at the Parchin High Explosives Test Site in the research and development engineering for spherical explosives – which have no civilian uses. And that medical reactor might not be all that innocent. I read recently that its fuel rods had been unloaded – I wish I could remember the source – and the writer speculated that Iran was about to begin plutonium extraction, a process their friends the North Koreans have mastered. It would be wonderful if negotiation could pull the teeth of this dragon. Even Winston Churchill said jaw, jaw is better than war,war. The truly frightening thing is that negotiations are only a ploy, and we will not have the courage, or, in the event, perhaps the time to prepare for the unpleasantly necessary.
we already have prepared to bomb Iran's facilities should we note that they've completed their program and are attempting to assemble nuclear weapons.
actually Obama is not prepared to do anything, as today's strong endorsement of Hagel for SecDef, who has explicitly ruled out military action under any circumstances, corroborates. The current Secretary of Defense is not representative of Obama's multilateralist and phlo-Islamic worldview, Hagel is the truer north. It could be however that Iran isn't capable of the engineering required for the timed sequences of shaped charges necessary to trigger a fission bomb and that the Sunni possessors of the technology won't help out. N. Korea? does theirs work?
silly conclusion, besht. Obama's defending Hagel while saying that he's not chosen a nominee doesn't indicate a darn thing about what the Obama admin is prepared to do about iran. you're merely citing your own opinion…. and that is mostly bullsteam. n n
the bullstream is where your solipsistic boat prefers to eddy rotating in tiny circles, … glug glug glug n nCircumcised ally and house poodle Joe Klein makes the argument for Hagel's nomination as a lynchpin of Obama policy and it is premised on deal deal… not hold firm and bomb: n n[NRO: Meanwhile, Joe Klein of Time offered his own theory for why a Hagel nomination would be in trouble: the dread “Israel Lobby.” Klein warns that should Hagel not become SecDef, it will “empower” the “neoconservatives”, and endanger the nuclear deal with Iran that could otherwise come this year. [JINO Joe's quote states this at rambling length] ] n nA bombing when and if Iran began to assemble a device was never, specifically, promised to begin with, and, in general, action promised next Thursday as an excuse for inactivity today cannot be taken seriously. Wimpy will never pay for a single hamburger. The money shot of the credibility is that concrete action is being shifted to the future. n nWhat was said was that once the United States determined Iran was beginning to assemble a device the United States would have up to a year to decide how to prevent that. n nMeanwhile, by inference, the President implies Hagel's opponent are unpatriotic–and his allies directly label them as part of the Israel/neocon/Jew Lobby conspiracy–touting the "patriotic" bona fides of a man who has explicitly stated that military action against Iran will never happen and that he and the entire Congress are thwarted by an intimidating "Jewish Lobby". n nBecause some of us are not prepared to bark on command and roll over. n nTrue, just as Obama may have to cut Hagel loose (may) he may (at the end of the day) find himself doing things he will not be prepared to do up to the moment he finds himself doing them. Not something to bet on.
you started out rocking but becalmed and quietly submitted to a sea-change…. and not "by inference", which was all foam and flotsam.
keep your eyes on the GCC. nIran certainly is.
Obama is falling for Iran's deception the way wannabee actresses used to fall for Errol Flynn. n nHe falls for it because he wants to – not because he's being fooled. n nObama may be an idiot of the first degree, but he's no fool.
"But since even according to these estimates Iran will have enough fuel for a weapon in only a few months…" n nWe've been hearing this 'just a few months away' nonsense for years, Jonathan, yet still there is not a skerrick of hard evidence that Iran is building a bomb. All we have is conjecture from the hard right coupled with wishful thinking.
Obama takes his talking points from Chris Matthews who looked into the camera yesterday and with a straight face uttered "Some Thing Will Have To Be Done!" n nWell something was done, Obama determined there was nothing to do. Now Chris can mark it off as another W for Obama and get back to shrieking about another thing.
Obama's actions vis-a-vis Iran make no sense *unless* one completely dismisses what he says he is doing, and looks only at his actions. The latter say, "I have decided that the US can live with a nuclear Iran, just as we live with Pakistan and the rest of the nuclear club."
Why should we credit the same villains and fools who WMD'd us into Iraq?
we shouldn't. but they're gone and this hasn't anything to do with that.
Wow, a smackdown of the Vile Old Anti-Semite by a fellow leftist. What say you to ldubinsky, Mr. Jew Hater?
Actually, they're (some of them) still "there." Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta… n nIn any case, "they" didn't tell us Iraq had WMD. They told us what our intelligence said. n nBut that's far too sophisticated for grumpy old men to understand. Grumpy young ones too, I suppose. n n
The left's theory is that once wrong always wrong forever and ever unto the end of time. So that when they shriek and caterwaul that such and such means w.o. a doubt that the entire economy is going to implode and it doesn't, we can safely ignore everything they ever have to say about everything forever because after all, wrong once, wrong forever. Or example when, whatever you believe about Global Warming, when some authority tells us it's all too late there's nothing to be done we're all doomed….and in fact we wake up tomorrow and we're not all dead, we can safely ignore what the furthest fringes of the GW contingent has to say.
Grumps, this is not one of those ambiguous deduce the context multiple-choice questions that appear in the back stretch of the English comprehension SATs. It's one of the warm-up straight-ahead examples of how a respondent is supposed to read a paragraph and derive basic information. This story is about United States officials who believe the Iranian regime is signalling it *does* not, not, not want to acquire WMD. n nIt's sort of like the old joke, who are the Grateful Dead and why are they following me around? With Grumps it's who are those neocon fools and villains and why does their perfidy leer out at me from every single last news story I come across?
Please, besth2003, stop with the grandfatherly "Gumps". The poster who goes by the name "Grumpy Old Man" is a repulsive anti-semite who despises Israel and sees the Jewish Lobby behind every door.
he still could be a grandfather. n nfeel free though to give him such a smack… n n
Ah…if only Baghdad Bob would make a comeback, as spokesman for the Iranians. We would be spared all these hermeneutic gymnastics!
What evidence is there that Obama does not want Iran to get a nuke? Assuming, by the way, that they do not have one yet. We built a nuke in less than 4 years in the 1940's, so I find it quite unbelievable that Iran cannot do it that fast in the 21st century. I am guessing that there is whole lot that has already happened that is not easily made public, guessing there is at least a 60% chance that Iran already has a workable nuke. And this whole idea about further discussions is so silly that to give it the respect of having any validity is foolish
Only Israel can keep Obama honest. But Netanyahu has a habit of going wobbly at the moment of truth.