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Iran Spurns Incentives, Invites Further Isolation
Rejecting a generous EU offer, Tehran flatly turns its back on diplomacy. Now what?
Iran’s rejection of the recent EU deadline did not come as a big surprise to many Western countries; however, the consequences of Iran’s decision may come as a major surprise to its leadership.
By rejecting the offer of incentives, in one single move, Ayatollah Khamenei has managed to achieve what the U.S. has failed to do over the last three years, and that is to justify increased international pressure against Tehran.
This will come in two forms, economic and political. Economically, in all likelihood, there will be tougher sanctions imposed against Iran’s banks, and quite possibly Iranian shipping and air links. These may not be back-breaking, but they will create a noticeable dent in Iran’s economy.
What is likely to cause further damage is the political isolation in which Iran will find itself, especially in the Middle East. Nearly all of the leaders of the Persian Gulf emirates have until now been calling for U.S. engagement with Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei has shown that this does not work, even when the U.S. becomes directly involved.
It seems that rather than learn from America’s mistake of rejecting talks with Iran, as part of the “Grand Bargain” offered by Khamenei in 2003, Iran is imitating America’s mistake by refusing to accept the incentives offered by the EU and backed by the U.S.
It is a major red flag to those who fear Tehran: with such a clear-cut rejection of the diplomatic route, the rich sheikdoms now have cause for serious worry regarding the strong Iranian influence in Lebanon and Iraq.
We are likely to see increased Saudi assistance to Sunni groups in Iraq and Lebanon, as means of reducing Iran’s leveraging power in the region and to push it back to the negotiation table. But this also increases the chances of war in the region.
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Meir Javedanfar is the co-author with Yossi Melman of The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran. He runs Middle East Economic and Political Analysis (MEEPAS).
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27 Comments
1. Dark Helmet:Clearly, the need for another un committee to study this issue and make a motion to appoint a special board to formalize a sternly worded letter is in order. It is high time that iran is shown that the free world is not afriad to talk tough. I sincerely hope that the democratic leadership will once more take the issue at hand and go and meet with the leaders of the un human rights council in order to make sure that this global warming caused crisies by President Bush does not escalate to the point of paper cuts.
Aug 4, 2008 - 10:13 am 2. barrybarryquitecontrary.com:Dark Helmet – Well said!
Are you by chance a senior advisor to presumptive president Barack Obama? You’re keen grasp of tough talk is a breath of fresh air compared to the failed cowboy diplomacy of the surge in Iraq!
How clever you are to use “paper cuts” as a metaphor for Israeli aggression to stop another holocaust from happening. You sir, speak for all right minded people with your determination that we must “formalize a sternly worded letter.” I know for a fact (I can’t reveal my source) that Jimmy Carter has written a rough draft of just such a letter! Bravo!
P.S. As a senior advisor for presumptive president Obama, if you’re not part of his speech writing team you should be. Change, change, change… I can’t wait for change!
Aug 4, 2008 - 10:55 am 3. MarkD:Not to worry, Pelosi will save the planet. See, I said something nice about her, even in a different thread.
Seriously, we are doomed. It’s like the prelude to 9/11. It’s not as if there were no warnings that Al Quaeda would attack us, somewhere, again. The probablility that we would have taken preemptive military action against them, despite previous attacks was essentially zero.
There will be a mushroom cloud over an American city before we do anything about Iran, despite 30 years of what has been essentially one sided warfare against us.
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:03 am 4. Tom:DARK HELMET, YOUR COMMENTS REMIND ME OF THE LINE IN ALIENS. WHEN THE MARINES ARE TOLD TO PUT AWAY THEIR BULLETS, THE TROOP LEADER RESPONDS “WHAT DO WE USE, HARSH LANGUAGE?” THAT’LL GET EM IN LINE. HA
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:18 am 5. Dark Helmet:(The thing that amazes me the most is that plain talk goes unoticed and saracasm is not only so readily embraced, it is fawned over.)
For this we have catholic schools to thank…….
I am, dear Barry Barry, a featured consultant for the barrack obammy mammy campaign. In fact, my views are sought on each and every single issue of the day along with any future suggestions, past reflections and personal perspectives that have provided his greatness a strategy to handily beat Mr. MacCain.
From issues on secutiry, morals, taxes, race relations and health care, my guidance has been crucial in the placement of building blocks in the sand box upon which he stands. They can not live without me.
It is my suggestion that will be brought out later when his biggness says ” If I looked half white, would this be an issue?”.
I hope you will be able to rest better knowing that people like me are on the job when it comes to deciding how to spend your money and deciding just what it is that you should be doing with your life.
Paper cuts can be quite nasty, it’s what keeps the british parliament in line these days. Lest they have to risk cutting themselves handling all thoe pesky muslime lawsuits.
It’s how my hero dimmy carter tried to have Zel Miller assasinated after the how dare you ” A Deficit of Decency” (reccomended to me personaly by Jerry Reed almost as big of a carter fan as I am) was published.
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:47 am 6. John Samford:Iran has tried to get the USA to go to war for almost 30 years now. Maybe they want first shot at the next Marshal plan. I’m sure the Iraq Mullahs have been burning up the microwaves with their new cell phones telling the Mad Dog mullahs about all the Money American have and about how clueless their auditors are.
Aug 4, 2008 - 12:10 pm 7. Dark helmet:Something nice about Fancy Nancy? I hear she can polish a helmet better then almost anybody except Barney. Is that nice? It depends on whose helmet is being polished.
John…. leave me out of this.
Aug 4, 2008 - 12:20 pm 8. Joe Buzz:“Diplomacy is the key” When Ahmed said that last week you just new he was stalling for more time. The left can say “…see he wants to talk”. The Persians are playing the UN like a fiddle.
Aug 4, 2008 - 12:22 pm 9. harry:Dark Helmet is quite the jester. European diplomacy with Iran gives new meaning to the phrase ad nauseum. How tough is tough talk? Plenty tough. All joking aside two things are adundantly clear: 1. Iran will not stop until they obtain the bomb. 2. Iran realizes no one is serious enough to stop them.
Aug 4, 2008 - 12:56 pm 10. Sam:There is no alternative now to different degrees of force or complete capitulation.
Force can range from a limited blockade up to a sustained bombing campaign combined with ground invasion into specific areas to ensure destruction of nuclear facilities complete with using underground demolition tactical nukes.
Capitulation means accepting a Nuclear weapons armed state ruled over by the mullahs and sitting back with popcorn in hand watching how much the Israel-Iran war that follows escalates.
I want to hear this from the candidates and which way they are going to go.
There is no third way.
Aug 4, 2008 - 1:21 pm 11. barrybarryquitecontrary.com:Dark Helmet – Yes probably, but I doubt it! There’s some plain talk for ya from Obama, Chelsea’s Mama and Ahmadamnajambs Bomma!
We’ll be fine! Things are looking up! Just increase my taxes enough so that we can cross the tipping point into REAL socialism and all will be right with the world. Am I fawining over my own sarcasm? I think so.
They say on the clock face of intellect, sound reasoning comes within a second hand sweep of insanity. All I have left is my humor and even that will go the way of the Fairness Doctrine!
Aug 4, 2008 - 1:25 pm 12. Dark helmet:European diplomacy…. now there’s a jester in court for you, running the show. Haveing first cousins marry for so long has got to be the most idiotic way of choosing leaders to begin with.
That is where the term ‘royal palms’ comes from, nice to look at but serve no function what so ever.
Harry, you are quite correct on your first point. With your second statement I would say ” iran is BETTING no one else is serious enough to stop them.”
Don’t underestimate President Bush and his paper cutting ways. It may be the most unpopular thing ever done, but if he knows our safety depends on it, unlike olmert, he won’t leave office with an atomic powered iranian threat in place.
Aug 4, 2008 - 1:35 pm 13. Meir Javedanfar:Hi Harry, for now it seems you are right. All depends on the next UN meeting to impose sanctions. If they are seen as weak, then we really have to start fearing the worst.
Aug 4, 2008 - 1:41 pm 14. WR Jonas:I don’t think the US or the UN is of any real concern to Iran. They know the enemy they have to calculate is Israel. Iran can forestall the US for ever by their bait-on-a-string diplomacy.We are suckers for any ploy knowing they will move it away the moment it serves them.It is our State Department general uselessness that Iran depends on.
Aug 4, 2008 - 2:11 pm 15. John:Bibi Netanyahu(?) is the one they are wary of. He will not be deceived by their endless play for time to build a bomb.
Hey, you shouldn’t sell tough talk short. Look how it worked for Germany, oh wait I meant North Korea. Never mind
Aug 4, 2008 - 2:21 pm 16. Tony:Let us be clear about this – as soon they have finished painting the decals on the first workable Iranian nuke the liklihood is that the thing is going to go fizzing away to the nearest infidel target. The whole “mutually assured destruction” business of the Cold War doesn’t apply here.
If the west can get their heads around this different attitude towards nukes by the mullahs then we have may have a chance. If not, we’re all screwed.
Barack Obam-appeasement becoming president will remove any credible threat of physical force from the west which is essential in bringing the thugs to the negotiating table.
Aug 4, 2008 - 2:51 pm 17. August 4th Link Roundup | THE HOT JOINTS:[...] Iran’s answer to Saturday deadline: No (Shocking I know) [...]
Aug 4, 2008 - 3:29 pm 18. barrybarryquitecontrary.com:My fellow Americans, I must say with all affluent confidence in the meandering ways of social injustice, the dream that we bring to each other is more than a reasonable response to Iran.
After all, and I’ve been very consistent on this point, Iran is a very small country that has enough problems of its own, why should we be so directionally unilateral to believe that our aggressive response will be seen as anything other than what it is? Iran is not our enemy. The enemy of free people everywhere is the social inequality that brings about just such an occasion such as this where all rational for the common good is not in order.
Therefore, let me reiterate my consistent point, the world is waiting for true leadership, a true leadership with a true leader in America that can lead with the kind of leadership that is true to how this country was founded, doing away with the past injustices and moving toward a season of political, social and economic light that we all are working toward, a season of hope. This is the kind of change that Iran and the rest of the world expects and deserves from me as president of the United States, not just of America but of the world. I am firmly committed to holding Iran accountable to their word, regardless of what they say. -BHO
Aug 4, 2008 - 4:03 pm 19. kabud:there is this fundamental principal in dealing with criminal scum of soviet and alike kind:
NEVER TRUST THEM NEVER FEAR THEM NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH THEM
then they will come crawling and begging for forgiveness,
BUT NEVER FORGIVE: PUT THEM TO JUSTICE AND HANG
or thy will get you in the back, at night, get you youngest child, decapitate and sent you the head
THIS IS REAL LIFE not you idiotic TV
Aug 4, 2008 - 4:52 pm 20. MrTender:Now what????
Bush will do exactly what the plan has been all along. He will attack. Gas will triple in price. The oilmen in the WH will get even richer. The attack will also make it an election issue and this will favor McSame
Look at a world map
Iraq >>>>>> Guess which country >>>>>> Afghanistan
You guessed it. All in a straight line. Where 2 continents collide and where all of the oil is.
It has been the plan for 8 years.
DUH!
Aug 4, 2008 - 5:24 pm 21. John Samford:Dark helmet:
John…. leave me out of this.
Aug 4, 2008 – 12:20 pm
I thought I was going to slip that past you. Oh well.
Aug 4, 2008 - 5:53 pm 22. harry:If anybody at the Pentagon had hair on their arse besides Rummy, we would have kept going in ‘03.
The GWoT would be over now, with terrorists doing the strange fruit thingie all across the planet.
America NEEDS a serious revamp of the entire system that produces the U.S. Military Officer Corps.
Mr Tender get a grip. Bush will not start a new front. Afghanistan has no oil but a lot of Opium so why with your myopic leftist logic aren’t you declaring Bush the ultimate drug dealer instead of the oil pimp you make him out to be? We need oil independency but with leaders like Pelosi at the helm we couldn’t open a can of motor oil without their approval much less open up ANWR and off shore sites. The Semocrats don;t deserve a single seat in the House or Senate.
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:26 pm 23. Don:Great article that discusses this by josh xiong:
<A HREF=”http://joshxiong.com/?p=16″Josh Xiong: Is Iran Rational
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:58 pm 24. Don:Or just:
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:58 pm 25. Dark helmet:http://joshxiong.com/?p=16
John, so much eludes my thimble sized brain, you should have no trouble getting anything past me. I rather liked Rummy as well. I thought he was an asset to the matter at hand. He served his president and his country well, history may consider thatas well, just not in public schools. It was piglucy’s visit to syria and well inflated tires that finally brought the radicals to their knees.
Aug 4, 2008 - 8:04 pm 26. John Samford:I finally figured out what that tire guage deal is. The Dems are setting up post November employment opportunities.
Aug 5, 2008 - 2:01 am 27. Muggins:Only nobody has told them you use COLD air to inflate your ties. Hot air has a different PSI.
That will be important in the post change America where the tire gage is king and Chicago pimps start giving samples.
I’m starting to wonder if Dubba has a master plan. The Mad Dog Mullahs will nuke New York first, which will put paid to the Democratic party for this generation AND the next. It will also take care of the MSM, Billery and Rev. Sharpton. About 4 or 5 major enemies of America vanish in one bright flash and loud noise. The average American IQ will go up by several points ( it is down to 96. something from it’s WW2 100).
Many birds with one stone, so to speak. A whole flock.
Years of deception and lies from Iran, and limp wristed sanctions by the West seem futile? Nobody serious enough to stop Iran? The overall strategy in this drama is to wait until Israel decides to initiate war with Iran. All the world leaders know it and this is how it has to unfold because there’s not enough political consensus to start a war with Iran. Once Israel bombs Iran, Iran will then declare war on America, attack shipping and oil infrastructure around the Gulf, and send suicide bombers & sabotage units over the border into Iraq.
Aug 5, 2008 - 11:07 am