Ironically, the mullahs and I have something of key significance in common: utter contempt for Secretary Global Test, the Most Equal Comrade, and the Freedom-Hater party.Originally, Iran’s official media had presented the accord as a treaty (qarardad) but it now refers to a “letter of agreement” (tavafoq nameh).The initial narrative claimed that the P5+1 group of nations that negotiated the deal with Iran had recognized the Islamic Republic’s right to enrich uranium and agreed to start lifting sanctions over a six-month period. In exchange, Iran would slow its uranium enrichment and postpone for six months the installation of equipment for producing plutonium, an alternate route to making a bomb. A later narrative claimed that the accord wasn’t automatic and that the two sides had appointed experts to decide the details (“modalities”) and fix a timetable.On Sunday, an editorial in the daily Kayhan, published by the office of “Supreme Guide” Ali Khameini, claimed that the “six month” period of the accord was meaningless and that a final agreement might “even take 20 years to negotiate.”It was, therefore, no surprise that Iran decided to withdraw its experts from talks in Geneva to establish exactly how to implement the accord. “Now we have to talk about reviving the talks on modalities,” says Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.Translated into plain language, the new Iranian narrative is that talks about implementing an accord that is not legally binding have collapsed and that, in the words of the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, Ali-Akbar Salehi, there is no change in the rhythm and tempo of Iran’s nuclear project. “Our centrifuges are working full capacity,” Salehi said last Thursday.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Patty cake may score Secretary Global Test and the MEC some points with the kumbaya crowd, but it has a whole different value to the mullahs
As far as they're concerned, there is no binding treaty:
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I'm of course not nearly as well versed on all this as you are and presume you lump me in with your much disparaged unicorns & rainbows crowd, but even Dennis Ross (he of the book of the same title as what I continually espouse, Statecraft -Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007) as recently as 9 September 2013 was advocating military action vs. Syria. Of course a lot has happened since then as we deferred to Putin's solution. His reasoning?
ReplyDelete"...if the resolution for military action against Syria is blocked, “there will be no diplomatic outcome to our conflict with Iran over its nuclear weapons.”
“The hard-liners in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and around the Supreme Leader will be able to claim that there is only an economic cost to pursuing nuclear weapons but no military danger,” Ross noted. He explained that regardless of the United States having said that It will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, “we are prepared to live with an Iran that has nuclear arms.” But Israel is not prepared to live with a nuclear Iran and would likely launch an attack against Israel. This attack, according to Ross, “will not inevitably involve the United States, but maybe it will — and maybe it should.” At this point to cost of not acting against Syria will be seen as not “so low,” according to Ross.
Of course, since September the agreement with Iran has occurred as well. I hesitate to infer diplomatic incompetency from the domestic foul-ups by this current administration but, yes, count me amongst those "of little faith."
Read more at http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/09/10/Dennis-Ross-War-with-Iran-more-likely-if-action-on-Syria-is-not-taken.html
We must keep our powder dry when it comes to Syria. As I said previously, who, at this point, would we exert force on behalf of? But that is also probably the advisable course re: Iran. Mainly because there would be no stomach for it with the American public. Which means we must support the John Bolton / Norman Podhortetz ' Caroline Glick position: Israel must launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran.
ReplyDeleteWell at one time not too long ago we were going to use force vs. Syria because of the chemical weapons thingie. But Vlad the Putin kissed that and made it all go away. Yes, Ross admits the American public have no stomach for it. Even without conscription.
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