The biggest set of obstacles to achieving an agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program involves each side's inclination to believe the worst regarding the other side's intentions. A major body of opinion in the United States holds that Tehran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and that any indications to the contrary—including the Iranian denials of an intention to build a nuclear weapons, the fatwas by the supreme leader saying that such weapons are un-Islamic, the continued adherence to the nonproliferation treaty, the acceptance of international inspectors, and the Iranians' restraint in accumulating any stockpile of medium enriched uranium—constitute posturing, lying or stalling. A corresponding body of opinion in Iran, which may include the supreme leader, believes that the United States is determined to achieve regime change and intends to squeeze and punish Iran until such change is indeed achieved. The Iranians have been given plenty of reason to believe that, and so when they see or hear something about the United States instead wanting to reach agreements with the Islamic Republic, the Iranians suspect that this is just posturing, lying or stalling.
With such a deep hole of distrust out of which to dig, the results of the negotiations in Kazakhstan this week between Iran and the P5+1 were encouraging. The P5+1 had the good sense to make at least modest changes in its previous negotiating position, by putting a bit more sanctions relief on the table and reframing a key demand regarding one of the critical Iranian nuclear facilities. The parties still have a long way to go, especially regarding the sanctions side of things. But the Iranians strove to put a positive spin on the results. The movement in the P5+1 position may have been small, but it caught their attention. When the chief Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili, made his customary post-round appearance before the press, this was the first time he did so without displaying photographs of any of the assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists.
With this situation of discernible but reversible progress at the negotiating table, the worst thing that anyone—especially anyone who supposedly favors restricting Iran's nuclear program to preclude an Iranian nuclear weapon—could do at this moment would be anything that stokes the Iranian suspicions about true U.S. intentions. But that is what is being done right now in Congress, with two draft measures in particular. One is a bill—a kind that members by now could write in their sleep—to pile still more sanctions on Iran. Probably even worse is a Senate resolution introduced by Lindsey Graham and Robert Menendez that for most part is just another expression of Congressional love for Israel but that ends with a clause that gives a green light for Israel to launch a war against Iran.
That latter resolution would be extraordinarily inappropriate even if it came at a less promising and critical time—a “turning point,” according to Jalili—than now. The resolution condones what would be an act of aggression that, despite supposedly being taken in the name of nuclear nonproliferation, would be committed by a state that has long had an arsenal of nuclear weapons that is totally outside any international control regime, against a state that has no such weapons and hasn't even decided it wants to build any. The resolution also means happily surrendering to a foreign state the decision to start a war that would have serious repercussions for the United States.
If Iran took comparably provocative steps in the wake of a negotiating round, many voices in the United States would be yelling about how this shows how hostile are Iranian intentions, how Iranians are not serious about negotiating an agreement, and how the United States must respond by making its own posture even more hard line and inflexible. We should not be surprised if when the provocation is in the other direction, Iranians might react similarly.
Bashing of Iran and coddling of aggressive Israeli action is now second nature to many members of Congress, who need no additional stimulus for that sort of thing any more. But AIPAC is giving them such a stimulus anyway. What better time than now, with AIPAC's annual policy conference coming up next week, for the organization to try to demonstrate anew that it hasn't been cowed by the Hagel nomination contest, in which it decided early to fold what it correctly determined was a losing hand.
Abba Eban famously observed that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Unfortunately we are getting to where we might be able to say the same thing about the United States with regard to Iran. The biggest past instance of missing an opportunity came in 2002, when a brief period of fruitful U.S.-Iranian cooperation was ended by George W. Bush's declaration of the axis of evil. With initiatives such as we are seeing today on Capitol Hill, there might be another big missed opportunity in the making.
Comments
Paul Pillar unfortunately draws a false parallel between the Iranians and US sides in the nuclear negotiations. If the Iranians think that the US is using the negotiations as merely a pretext and distraction for a policy of regime change, they indeed have quite a bit of justification (in fact non-Iranian parties have concluded the same, to wit IAEA director Elbaradei who said that the US-EU were only interested in "Regime change, by any means necessary" http://news.antiwar.com/2011/04/20/elbaradei-us-europe-werent-interested-in-compromise-with-iran/ )However, on the other side, there is no real concern in the US that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. In fact the conclusion of the 16 (now 17) US intelligence agencies from 2007 has been endorsed again as late as 2012. So Pillar's statement that "major body of opinion in the United States holds that Tehran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons" is simply not the case. The people who make that claim are 1- not a "major body" but are in fact a highly vocal and well-placed minority and furthermore 2- there is no evidence at all to justify their claims about Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions, and 3- they've made it quite clear that they do NOT want a US-Iran rapprochement, and so are making a fuss about a non-existient nuclear weapons program in order to prevent/derail negotiations. They're just making it up for the sake of Israel.Anyone who looks back on the history of this standoff can see that the Iranians repeatedly offered compromises well beyond any legal obligation imposed on them by the NPT, and at every step the US either ignored or actively undermined opportunities to resolve this standoff peacefully. Just look at the Turkey-Brazil brokered uranium swap deal, that the Obama administration killed at the last moment, AFTER Iran had said "yes"
I have not seen any internet journal/magazine more hostile to Israel and Jews than this miserable excuse for a magazine. Are Jews and Israel responsible for anything and everything wrong in the world? One would get that very impression from reading this rag Are the writers who believe Iran has no hostile aggressive intentions towards Israel liars, naive or both? The President of Iran regularly states he will destroy Israel and kill every Jew. How dare Bret Stephens criticize the "war hero" Chuck Hagel!! How dare a Jew criticize a Jew hating Christian which Hagel is beside being a former incompetent Army officer and the most hostile Senator towards Israel while he served in the Senate. How dare Israel have nuclear weapons. Just because a third of all Jews in the entire world were murdered before Jews were given less than 10/% of their homeland (read Treaty of San Remo) which was the size of a large US county with indefensible borders why should they feel threatened and obtain nuclear weapons.? This shit rag with all of its' Jew hating rodent staff whose IQs combined don't equal the mean IQ of a Jew can go fuck themselves . I served in the US Army (Boyscouts) . Do you think Israel needs the US Army which has not won a war on their own since 1898 ? Jews have survived persecution by scum like the writers of this shit rag for over 2000 years. Now that they have a piece of their homeland back they should throw out the trespassing Arabs and build it up. This shit rag is no better than Stormfront . Jews should confront scum like the writers and publishers of Nazi like shit rags like this one. There readers ,writers and publisher of this shit rag are really just jealous Jews are 10 times more intelligent and successful. Israel doesn't need Christian help. All you rodents are crying about how much aid Israel gets. Israel lost money being involved with the backstabbing American Christian scum who run the US. A lot of the money which made the US go from a poor country with 25% unemployment before WWII to the richest country at the end of WWII was made helping the Nazis murder Jews .Read Edwin Black's books The US who were rooting for the Nazis helped the Nazis through their large corporations all through WWII. So they prolonged the war and helped destroy Europe thus making the US the only country which at the end of WWII was totally intact. The US would have stayed out of the war but for the attack on Pearl Harbor . They would not have fought the Nazis if Hitler didn't declear war on the US . Why should they fight a country they admired.. Jews pay by far the most taxes in the US per capita 40% of Forbes 100 Richest Americans are Jews . So when you Christians cry like little girls about all the money you give to Israel half of it is from Jews anyway.
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