US Agrees to Participate in Iran Nuclear Talks
America's entry into nuclear negotiations with Iran is the right move at the right time.
The news that the U.S. has agreed to be present at future EU-Iran nuclear talks is a positive sign that Washington has decided to learn from its recent achievements with North Korea.
Until today, the U.S. has left it to the Europeans, and their chief policy advisor Javier Solana, to negotiate with Iran. However, from now on, just as the case with North Korea, the U.S. will be present at the negotiations.
“The substance remains the same, but this is a new tactic,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. “What this does show is how serious we are when we say that we want to try to solve this diplomatically,” she added. And indeed it does. This move will also allow the U.S. to become closer to Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia who have called for a bigger U.S. diplomatic push on this front.
This is in addition to recent news that the U.S. is going to open an interest section in Tehran, a move which was welcomed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both moves are likely to increase U.S. leverage against Iran, while adding credibility to the position of Washington as a strong power broker in the Middle East.
This shift in policy, which comes after 30 years of strained relations between the two sides, has come at the right time. Iran’s position in the region has been gathering strength. As well as scoring successes in Iraq, the recent prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah has given Tehran even more influence.
To those in the region who want to see a weakened Israel, Iran’s ally Hezbollah has proved to them that hostage-taking works, and that Israel is prepared to pay any price, including the release of murderers such as Samir Kuntar. And Hezbollah’s leader did not hide his glee. Ridiculing what he called the failure of Israeli intelligence to determine the fate of its two soldiers, he told a massive crowd in Beirut that “had the Zionists been able to establish that their two soldiers are dead, they would have demanded a different outcome.”
And this is not the end of it. The taste of success has left many pro-Hezbollah Lebanese wanting more. They now want to pressure Israel to “return” the Shebaa farms, even though according to the UN it is not Lebanese territory: it is Syrian. This trick was put together by Damascus after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. Once the UN confirmed that Israel had abided by all the requirements from UN Security Council Resolution 425, and was no longer occupying Lebanese territory, Damascus suddenly panicked. It realized that its ally Hezbollah no longer had any justification to attack Israel. Consequently, it decided to “donate” the Shebaa farms, which is close to the Golan, to Lebanon. However, to the fury of anti-Syrian elements in Lebanon, such as Walid Jumblatt, Assad refused to sign a document endorsing this.
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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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15 Comments
1. harry:Meir were you born yesterday? Do you think this is the first time Israel made outrageous deals with liars and muderers to bring back its dead? And why do such liars and murderers need justification when another lie will do? By now that is abundantly clear!
Jul 18, 2008 - 5:45 am 2. politicalreacharound:Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Jul 18, 2008 - 5:56 am 3. J.J. Sefton:Using the recent North Korea deal as a model of success in dealing with Iran reaches a level of idiocy that is beyond laughable. I mean, you have got to be kidding, right???? Words fail me…….
Jul 18, 2008 - 7:07 am 4. Meir Javedanfar:Hi Harry, I have to tell you that on the day of prisoner exchange, the mood here was very dark. Many people were utterly depressed. Hezbollah played a very nasty psychological game with the families of the two soldiers, by not telling them until the last moment about their fate.
Jul 18, 2008 - 7:12 am 5. harry:Meir,
Jul 18, 2008 - 8:19 am 6. Cyrus:The only thing new may be Israeli outrage following yet another pack of lies its government agreed to. The Arabs have played the same psychological game over and over again whether it’s Hamas Hizballah or before with Arafat and even before that. Free people are at a disadvantage in this world. They want peace so bad they make foolish bargains with evil people. Now some more foolishness awaits with the US at the bargaing table or shall I say the capitulating table. It seems every day is groundhog day in that we keep waking up believing our interlocutors are sincere. America is in a quandary over Iran. I believe the first steps out of this dilemma is to minimize reliance on foreign oil. Even if gas plummets and it seems like it’s about to we must not allow ourselves to be compromised by our suppliers. Left on its own the Middle East would blow itself up. Israel as weird as it sounds is more a stabilizing factor in the ME as it is a threat to world peace. Attention focused on Israel means less attention focused on waging war with each other. Iran’s waste of time trying to wipe Israel off the map means it’s not concentrating its efforts of undermining Saudi Arabia and other GCC states. As we saw just last week even phony demonstrations of power caused a spike in oil prices how much more would a regional war cause? A nuclear Iran is an insurance policy for it to undermine and ultimately control the ME. Everyday brings Iran closer to that objective yet here we find ourselves adding to the blather by sitting down at the endless bargaining sessions begun by impotent Europe. Shall we predict the outcome of the next round of talks? Can you say the same old song?
Meir,
Jul 18, 2008 - 8:28 am 7. Morton Doodslag:I think when Israel exchange 200 bodies and 5 VIP prisoners with her 2 bodies it is means they are very sensetive about values.
in Islamic country the human being is absent and they didn’t care about their killed soldiers.
There’s a deep flaw in Mr. Javedanfars’s reasoning. He paints a vivid picture of how displays of weakness, such as Israel’s negotiations (diplomacy) to exchange prisoners for kidnapped tortured murdered soldiers only makes the Muslim slime more bloodthirsty. He then asserts that America’s choice to join these preposterous (failed) European nuclear negotiations (diplomacy) will somehow augment American influence and prestige.
I can’t help but notice the way Mr. Javedanfars’s analysis and advice always seems designed to muddle, confuse, and to blunt the impact of our efforts to violenyly confront the genocidal Islamic Republic of Iran. If Iran deployed a clever army of moles into the West, moles whose purpose was to obfuscate, confuse, and befuddle, such moles might look suspiciously like Mr. Javedanfar, or the army of Persians in Western circles who consistently misdirect, and strive to make certain we never attack or annihilate the Khomeinist filth of Iran.
One thing is certain; we’ve trusted these analysts for far too long. We’ve naively listened to their advice to our detriment. Iran is now closer to nuclear hegemony in the region, and has expanded its evil Shiite tentacles into Lebanon, Iraq, Gaza, and the West Bank.
After three decades of nonsense, perhaps it’s time to stop listening. We’ve been sold down the river by Muslims and Persians who clearly don’t have our interests in mind when they formulate their opinions.
Jul 18, 2008 - 8:44 am 8. John Samford:That turnip truck is getting much better mileage now that Meir has fallen off. Got a tune for you Meir.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3xEXCF0Ftk
Sometimes cold turkey is the ONLY choice.
“What this does show is how serious we are when we say that we want to try to solve this diplomatically,”
Not exactly. What it shows it that some of the people can be fooled all of the time.
This is old news, a known fact since at least P.T. Barnum. Although I suspect the Roman emperors were hip to it also.
There is NO CHANCE of the negotiations doing anything other then what the Mad Dog Mullahs want them to do, which is gain time to manufacture atomic bombs. It worked for Kim, why shouldn’t it work for the Mad Dog Mullahs? And once it works for the Mullahs, it will work for anyone.
When does it stop? When a major Western city (my money is on New York or London) vanishes in a Pika Dan. Tht will be the beginning of the end of everything. Just think, Meir will have done his little bit to help bring that about.
“There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of
Jul 18, 2008 - 9:08 am 9. kabud:others.”
- Niccolò Machiavelli
Those people will fool us
and more innocent victims will die
If negotiators don’t realize it- it is going to be trouble
We should use negotiations as some time co consolidate internal iranian forces who will put kremlin bogus mullahs to justice
Jul 18, 2008 - 10:56 am 10. saus:Meir, your analysis of our hostage deal in Israel is spot on, but you cannot call out the failures of appeasement on one hand, while praising its glories on the other.
Yes, who wishes more than all of us in Israel that diplomacy could win out with Iran, after all whether we strike or not we in the end in Israel will pay the biggest price, but I’d rather pay now than when Iran has nuclear bombs! Having the US inch closer to appeasing the Iranian regime will bring no better result than us appeasing the Hezbollah. This in the end will empower Syria, empower Iran, is a tasty appetizer for the many in the west who don’t think it would be so bad to feed the Iranian crocodile all of Israel itself, to keep them quiet in Qom.. That is unacceptable.
It needs to be clear we are prepared to fight, whether the rest of the world likes it or not, that the price of gasoline does not determine the fate of the people of Israel, the people of Israel determine their own fate as that is the very definition of an independent Jewish State. Would we rather our allies stand with us, of course! America is the most powerful country in the world by exponents, but Israel cannot wait forever. At some point the unfortunate bride waiting at the altar needs to realize the groom may not show up to the party.
This weakness, always unwilling to go forward, to act out internationally what is said either diplomatically or any other way tells us in Israel all we need to know I think, it also tells the Iranians all they need to know. Of late our own government, the picture in the dictionary next to weakness so far has embraced this technique, fancying itself ‘brilliant’ like Liberals in Europe!! Woohoo! – It has been an utter disaster so far on every front.
Jul 18, 2008 - 2:04 pm 11. cedarford:saus – It needs to be clear we are prepared to fight, whether the rest of the world likes it or not…
I think from Israel’s groveling to Hezbollah to get two corpses back – 195 coffins for two, plus 4 dangerous fighters and a convicted mass murderer was weakness at it’s maximum. Already Hamas noted that their price for Shalit just went way up after the Nasrallah deal, and that he appeared to be worth just as much as a corpse as alive. Plus, add in the 2006 war they figured it was better to lose than take casualties for, or worse, leave behind dead Israeli corpses. The signs of Zionist craveness appear to point to the fact that it is hardly clear that Israel will fight Iran.
“What if, God forbid, we take casualties attacking Iran and they demand money, missile technology, or giving up the Golan to get our beloved corpses back?? We would have no choice!!”
They are doing their best to get America to fight for them, though…but it looks like the neocons and Christian Zionists that believe no amount of American lives and treasure lost to serve Israel’s interests and keep it’s regional WMD monopoly from challenge – is too much – have lost all meaningful ability to set policy in America.
Honestly, it appears Israel has lost it’s fighting spirit and has enough on it’s hands just dealing with Hez, Hamas, the Syrians and keeping Egypt bribed with US taxpayer dollars.
Jul 18, 2008 - 5:33 pm 12. Meir Javedanfar:To cedarford: Israel has not lost its fighting spirit. I think many were hoping that at least one of the soldiers would come back alive.
And another thing: diplomacy and multilateralism isn’t dead. Israel and the US can fight, but we must not forget that the military should serve political goals and ambitions. It should be a option of last choice, when all else fails. Unfortunately, due to wars and terrorist attacks, the militaristic way of thinking reigns supreme in many aspects of politics in Israel. Thats understandable, but we must try to change it. Israel has good diplomats. We should go in the international community and participate and negotiate in every forum, no matter who recognizes us, or doesn’t.
Jul 18, 2008 - 10:52 pm 13. harry:Meir,
Jul 19, 2008 - 12:54 pm 14. Victor:I knew I was going to be right except I didn’t know it was going to be so fast. Actually there wasn’t even a song and dance it was more like a no show. Let me figure out Iran’s next step. They will dodge the current threat of sanctions by requesting a meeting with the US included. They will sit down and then do the same old song and dance. This show should run another several months. Ho hum.
No, this is awful, it is being an “appeaser!” Bush is crumbling to his knees and “appeasing” the terrorist just like they did in WWII! We must not “appease” anybody! No “appeasement” to the “appeasers” who wish to “appease” the fanatical terrorists who are trying to steal our freedoms. They want to take our freedom fries, our churches, our Nike’s, our cars, yes they want to take it all! This is horrible! The “appeasement” will cause the downfall of America!
Jul 20, 2008 - 11:20 am 15. kabud:Victor:
our president has ill advisers: condy rice is a very dangerous enemy
1.she helped to create a false idiotic idea of `islamic` threat
2.she helped to block any serious measures to stop 9-11 from unfolding
3.she persuaded our President to get into dangerous game of friendship with kremlin
4.she pushed President Bush into the acceptance of China to the level of going to attend the BLOODY OLIMPICS
and the above is just a tip of the iceberg
Jul 20, 2008 - 1:37 pm