National News
"We're prepared to see if the Russians can explore something that may bring the Iranians around to the recognition that they cannot enrich and reprocess on their territory, that they have a credibility problem with the international community as to the fuel cycle," Rice told USA Today last week. "We'll see whether it works."
Within days of Rice's interview, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee delivered a rare public criticism of the Bush administration. "Last week's decision allowed Iran to win a critical round in its game of cat-and-mouse with the international community," AIPAC said in an email earlier this week headlined "IMPORTANT -- AIPAC press statement critical of Administration's recent decisions on Iran policy." AIPAC and Israel had hoped that the United States would nudge the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, into referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council last week for sanctions. The IAEA board met last week in Vienna and deferred a decision on whether to refer Iran to the Security Council while Britain, Germany and France -- the "E.U. 3" -- try to negotiate with Iran.
[...]But that could be too late, according to an assessment by Maj.-Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, Israel's military intelligence chief. "If, by the end of March," the IAEA board "does not succeed in transferring the issue to the Security Council, it will be possible to say that the diplomatic effort has failed," Zeevi-Farkash reportedly told the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee this week.
[...]"The danger is a global danger, and I think it is entirely clear that we cannot allow situation to emerge where Iran becomes a nuclear power," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said. Israel's military chief of staff said Sunday that he doubts diplomatic pressure will stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. "The fact that the Iranians are successful time after time in getting away from international pressure ... encourages them to continue their nuclear project," Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz told foreign journalists. "I don't believe for the time being that political pressure will bear any fruit."
Iran says it has no interest in enriching uranium to weapons levels, and wants only to convert it to fuel for peaceful energy purposes. But AIPAC and Israel are concerned that allowing Iran any uranium conversion capability would bring it dangerously close to weaponization if the E.U.-Russia deal falls through.
[...]Another factor informing resistance to the E.U.-Russian formula is that advocates of sanctions do not regard Russia as entirely trustworthy when it comes to Iran. Russia has an array of defense and nuclear investments in the Islamic republic, and Russian media reported Friday that Russia and Iran have just signed a $1 billion missile deal.
[...]The undercurrent of the U.S. strategy appears to be to allow Russia to realize how stubborn the Iranians are, a process that would finally drive Russia into the camp in favor of sanctions. "We were supportive of the efforts of the E.U. 3," the official said, referring to a failed agreement last year to shut down Iran's nuclear cycle. "They came to a dead end. Now we're trying to be supportive of Russia's efforts."
But there is more too the Israeli's discomfort. They have indicated that they prefer Assad to an Islamic fundamentalist regime in Syria. And they are very concerned about the new initiative of direct talks with Iran. Juan Cole at Informed Comment shares his view:
US ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad is going to start direct talks with the Iranians. Say what? Wasn't Scott Ritter saying only last winter that a Bush military attack on Iran was in the offing? What has changed?
Well:
1. The security situation in Iraq is deteriorating over time.
2. The Shiite religious parties won the Jan. 30 elections, which was not what Bush had hoped for.
3. The Neocons are going to jail or given sinecures, and their star is falling faster than the Chicxulub meteor that killed off the dinosaurs.
Veteran journalist Jim Lobe has put it all together in a tight analysis I haven't seen elsewhere.
It is the return of Realism in Washington foreign policy. You need the Iranians, as I maintain, for a soft landing in Iraq? So you do business with the Iranians. This opening may help explain why Ahmad Chalabi went to Tehran before he went to Washington, and why he was given such a high-level (if unphotographed) reception in Washington.
Likewise, it helps explain the Cairo Conference sponsored by the Arab League, the results of which were an effort to reach out to the Sunni Arab guerrillas. The Iraqi government even recognized that it was legitimate for the guerrillas to blow up US troops! This is a startling admission for a government under siege with very few allies. But it recategorizes the Sunni Arab leaders from being terrorists to being a national liberation force. You could imagine dealing with, and bringing in from the cold, mere nationalists. Terrorists are poison.
The Neocons began by wanting to destroy the Sunni Arabs of Iraq and their Baath Party, and then going on to overthrow the ayatollahs in Iran. They inducted Bush and Cheney into this over-ambitious and self-contradictory plan, which depended on putting the Shiite Iraqis in power in Baghdad. But wouldn't the Sunni Arabs violently object? Wouldn't the Iraqi Shiites establish warm relations with Tehran.
Of course. The Neocons kept getting their promoters to proclaim how brilliant they are. But Wolfowitz isn't exactly well published as an academic, and Feith is notoriously as thick as two blocks of wood. Their plan was stupid. It is hard to escape the conclusion that they are, as well. And now the stupid plan has collapsed, as anyone could have foreseen (I did, in 2002). And Realism is reasserting itself.
The two beneficiaries of the 180 degree turn by Bush's ship of state toward the fabled shores of Reality? The Neo-Baath of Sunni Iraq and the ayatollahs in Tehran. But who cares? If the US dealing with them can get our troops home and prevent a regional war that screws up the whole world, it will be well worth it. Ambassador Khalilzad has all along been the most pragmatic of the Neocons. There was even a time in the mid-1990s when he was willing to deal with the Talaban to get a gas pipeline built from Turkmenistan. His pragmatism (which the Neocons may well castigate as a lack of principle) will stand him in good stead in his talks with Tehran. The thing you always worry about is that it is already too late.
While I'm not as optimistic as Cole on this topic, I think the gist of his argument is true. Condi seems to have brought an element of realism to the Bush foreign policy. But after her press conference yesterday, clearly the lying and deception continues.
Speaking of optimists, here is one that made me chuckle.
Open Source
Late in our show What John Murtha Wrought, Chris asked the question “What would your ideal President do now in Iraq?†Anatol Lieven, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, suggested that Bush, like Nixon to China, approach Iran. Iran, intransigently nuclear-bound and newly lippy about Israel, is not going to go away, and it does not seem, so far, to have been put off by our democracy-building project in Iraq. Some are suggesting (see our show Steven Vincent, Basra and Iran) that the war in Iraq has allowed Iran to do precisely what it always wanted to do: make real its natural inclinations toward the Iraqi Shiite majority.
Can you imagine Bush doing something so statesman like as going to Tehran and shaking hands with Ahmadinejad? More realistically, the Bush Administration seems incapable of doing anything but dictating terms of agreement. I don't see much negotiation.
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