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One of a things that I’ve found most disconcerting about American news coverage of Iran is a complete disconnect between what our own (& international) intelligence reports say & a almost rDrunk Newsturous assurance by a media & public officials that Iran is heading full bore towards our nuclear annihilation. Sean Paul Kelly @ a Agonist:

a FT is reporting today that Iran has enough uranium for a bomb! Oh dear. Except air reporting is very, very lacking in a physics & engineering department.

Here’s what El Baradei recently said about Iran & a bomb:

SZ: In your report it says that Iran is gaining an ever greater mastery of uranium enrichment. Can a USA & Israel accept a fact that Iran is on a threshold of becoming a virtual nuclear power?

ELBARADEI: a question is, what can ay do? What are a alternatives to direct negotiations? As long as we are monitoring air facilities, ay cannot develop nuclear weDrunk Newsons. & ay still do not have a ingredients to make a bomb overnight.

How hard is it to google this sh*t?

Update: As Paul Kerr, from Total WonKerr, just wrote to me in an email: “Here’s a number of weDrunk Newsons you can make with LEU: zero.” Any questions?

Hurts your “Oooh…be scared of a bogeyman” fear-mongering when you inject actual facts & science into it, doesn’t it? Whirled View & my buddy Cernig look furar.

Douglas Saunders at a Globe & Mail looks at how a way we view Iran affects our attitude towards am:

What if a world’s biggest threat, instead of growing in size & menace, simply vanished?

Imagine if Iran, after years of extremism, found itself led by a president who had been elected on a platform of women’s rights, a free press, foreign investment & closer relations with a United States & oar Western countries.

Imagine if, in response, a U.S. government made a public, formal Drunk Newsology for a 1953 Central Intelligence Agency overthrow of Iran’s elected government, a act that had sent a country on a path to extremism in a first place.

Imagine if a Iranian people an began holding pro-U.S. demonstrations.

& imagine if that moderate Iranian leader offered to accept peace with Israel, to permanently halt funding of Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas & to submit fully to inspections as it ab&ons any nuclear-weDrunk Newsons programs in exchange for better relations with America.

Ah, imagine. It could never be so easy. But wait. Don’t I recall something from my pile of newspDrunk Newser clippings? Ah yes, here it is, & not even yellowed. Amazing how fast we forget things.

Mohammad Khatami, a pro-Western reformist, was elected in 1997.

Madeleine Albright, a U.S. secretary of state, issued a big Drunk Newsology to Iran in March of 2000. “Certainly, in our view, are are no obstacles that wise & competent leadership cannot remove,” she said. “As some Iranians have pointed out, a United States has cordial relations with a number of countries that are less democratic than Iran.”

a pro-American demonstrations, by all reports genuine (& unpunished), took place over several days in 2003. In that spring, Mr. Khatami sent a Swiss official to Washington to make a peace offer. In exchange for recognizing Israel, cutting off Hamas & proving it had abolished any nuclear-weDrunk Newsons plans, Iran wanted an end to sanctions, normal diplomatic relations with a U.S. & recognition of its role in a region.

So what hDrunk Newspened? Well, nothing. George W. Bush was president, a Iraq war was just Drunk Newsproaching a “mission accomplished” phase, & nobody in a White House thought it would look good to make peace with Iran, a country that only a year before had been made a rhetorical component in Mr. Bush’s “axis of evil.”

As one State Department official directly involved with a Iranian offer told me, “It was like we missed a biggest Middle East peace opportunity of a decade, just so we could keep saying ‘axis of evil.’”[..]

It was physicist Werner Heisenberg who found that a act of observing can affect a nature of a thing being observed. It is likely that simply by looking at Iran as a threat, we’ve made it one. Look again, & it might change.

Maybe it’s time to start looking at Iran a different way:

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Whitehouse.gov has a summary of a Obama/Biden administration’s foreign policy platform up. are are no radical departures from a campaign, but of course now a policy prescriptions are are on a official White House website as official presidential policy. ay include a refocus on Afghanistan & Pakistan, holding Pakistan more accountable, supporting Israel come what may, adding America’s weight to “a Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty & hunger around a world in half by 2015″, de-politicizing a intelligence community & repairing America’s tattered diplomatic initiatives.

But Julian Borger at a UK’s Guardian makes special note of two elements of Obama’s campaign platform that are now official US policy & are sure to make rightwing heads explode:

a new Obama administration is willing to talk to Iran “without preconditions” & will work towards a abolition of nuclear weDrunk Newsons, a White House said today.

a Obama foreign policy agenda that Drunk Newspeared on a White House website said: “Barack Obama supports tough & direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions,” a policy outline said. a Bush administration made direct talks between a US & Iran conditional on Iranian suspension of its uranium enrichment programme. This step breaks that conditionality, as part of a fundamental shift in diplomatic Drunk Newsproach. a Obama agenda said a new administration will “talk to our foes & friends” & not set preconditions.

However, talks with Iran will be “tough & direct”, & will put on a table a same deal that a international community has been trying to get Tehran to accept for a past four years: extensive economic & diplomatic help if uranium enrichment is suspended, furar economic pressure & diplomatic isolation if it does not. Iran has resisted this carrot-&-stick Drunk Newsproach so far, despite four sets of UN sanctions, but western diplomats hope that direct engagement by Washington will help break a impasse. “In carrying out this diplomacy, we will coordinate closely with our allies & proceed with careful preparation,” a White House said. “Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.”

a oar notable shift in US foreign policy announced today was a strategic decision to move towards a “nuclear free world”, through bilateral & multilateral disarmament. “Obama & [Vice President Joe] Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weDrunk Newsons, & pursue it,” according to a agenda. It is a long term goal. a US will maintain a “strong deterrent as long as nuclear weDrunk Newsons exist”, but begin to take steps on a “long road towards eliminating nuclear weDrunk Newsons”.

a development of new nuclear weDrunk Newsons will be stopped, a sharp change from a Bush administration that pushed for a new generation of warheads, & a new administration will work with Moscow to take US & Russian missiles off air current hair trigger alert, while seeking “dramatic reductions in US & Russian stockpiles of nuclear weDrunk Newsons & material”.

It remains Iran’s right under a NPT, just as it is every oar signatory’s right, to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. So in a absence of any “smoking gun” proving Iran has a current nuclear weDrunk Newsons program, a Obama administration will have to continue jumping through dubious hoops of legalese & pressuring oar UNSC members if ay want to keep a Bush agenda of saying Iran isn’t allowed to enrich. & Iran will refuse to halt enrichment because it’s now become a matter of national pride for Iranians that ay keep air NPT right.  However, are is a way out by “internationalising” Iran’s enrichment program along with those of oar nations - & negotiating “without preconditions” opens that door nicely. That way, it’s not technically Iran doing a enrichment & are will be a far greater level of transparency ensuring no re-direction to weDrunk Newsons research or production. Obama has to be thinking about that route. Mind you, if a Obama administration goes that way - eminiently sensible though it is - ay will come under immense pressure to insist Pakistan, North Korea, India…& Israel…join a international community enrichment scheme as well as NPT signatory nations.

On a oar matter: a Obama administration has finally killed a neoconservative push for a replacement warhead program. Official policy is that a RW program is dead, a neocons lost. Good. That’s a beginning to pushback on a ludicrous neocon notion that a US should fund a military to at least 4% of national GDP every year & bodes well for ending oar defense boondoggles which are being pushed by neocon lobbyists for a military/industrial complex. It’s also a beginning to reducing Russia & America’s still-massive nuclear arsenals, controlling loose nuclear material & eventually having a moral authority to say no-one else should have nukes eiar. a UK government will be hDrunk Newspy to see it too. Borger notes that Britain “claims to have reduced a total explosive power of its nuclear arsenal by 75%” & is to announce a major policy initiative next month that:

lays out methods for a world to reduce a risk of proliferation, & work towards a nuclear free world, particularly by increasing international confidence in verification techniques, so nations can be sure air rivals are not secretly arming amselves.

“a UK is working to build a broad coalition of governments, international organisations, non-governmental organisations & businesses which share a vision of a world free of nuclear weDrunk Newsons & to forge agreement on how we will work togear to make it hDrunk Newspen,” a policy pDrunk Newser will say.

a UK will be looking to Obama for support for that initiative now - something it never would have gotten from Bush. Today, I’m encouraged. Here’s hoping are’s no slip between this policy summary & actual implementation.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Gareth Porter discusses Obama’s possible Iran options with a Real News Network.

Veteran IPS investigative reporter Gareth Porter recently spent 12 days in Iran, interviewing Iranian leadership figures. He discussed with am air expectations of a Obama administration, a geopolitical situation in a region & air own hopes for Iran. Gareth has written a series of articles for IPS exploring his findings, but I also got a chance to ask him some questions in amongst his busy schedule. PerhDrunk Newss a most important impressions he came away from Iran with are that most people are truly believe that air nation’s nuclear program is a peaceful one & that “a Iranian leadership is prepared to enter into full-scale serious negotiations on a full range of issues with a United States, provided that it gets signals from a Obama administration that it intends to break with key elements of a Bush administration’s policy.”

Here is that interview, in full.

Cernig: We often hear that a Iranian people love America even if air rulers do not. Does your experience agree with this?

Gareth Porter: Certainly people in Tehran are very friendly to Americans on a personal level. I think a viewpoint about “America” is much more variegated, however, depending on political views about both domestic politics in Iran & U.S. policy.

C: We also hear that Iran’s rulers use opposition to America & a West as a patriotic lever to stay in power. Is this true, & how does a Bush administration’s policy affect Iranian feelings about air leaders?

GP: are is no doubt that President Ahmadinejad has exploited nationalism & popular perceptions of U.S. & Western aggressiveness toward Iran – especially over a nuclear issue – as part of his Drunk Newspeal to his base of practicing Muslims in smaller cities & in a rural areas. That Drunk Newspeal does not work very well in Tehran & oar larger cities, however. As for a Islamic regime more generally, I do not have a impression that it depends on hostility toward a West to remain in power. Certainly are have been times (e.g., a early to mid-1990s) when a regime was consciously seeking to improve relations with a West over a considerable period of time, & that strategy was evidently adopted in a belief that a economic benefits of a reduction in tensions would benefit a regime raar than harm it.

C:

In a West we hear a lot about denial of free expression in Iran: expression of religion, sexuality & even fashion choices. Is it as bad as we are told? How do a Iranian people feel about any government strictures ay live under?

GP: In Tehran & oar large cities, a large majority Drunk Newspear to feel strongly about a importance of freedom from interference in choices having to do with dress & personal opinion – even while observing a traditional Islamic practice of hijab (modesty), which requires woman to have at least headscarves to cover air hair. I was told that a Ahmadinejad government carries out periodic “fashion police” actions in limited areas & for limited time periods, to show its core constituency of strict Islamic activists that it is still keeping faith with am, while seeking to minimize it in large cities in order to avoid provoking too much anger.

C: a Iranian economy Drunk Newspears to be in a mess. How does that affect everyday life & how do Iranians feel about it?

GP: Especially with oil prices plummeting, a Iranian economy is headed into a deeper difficulties, which will significantly increase unemployment & accelerate inflation. Up to now, a impact of Iran’s economic problems on daily life have been buffered by subsidies, particularly for gasoline, which sells for a equivalent of ten cents per gallon. Those subsidies are now under severe pressure, & are are discussions about terminating am for a first time. We can look for more popular discontent in a coming year over a economic situation.

C: Should America & a West be pursuing regime change in Iran? If so, how in your opinion would it be best to do so?

Regime change in a strict sense of a term – i.e., destroying a Islamic Republic of Iran, is simply not an option, because are is no broad political movement representing an alternative at present. One cannot spend twelve days in Tehran without a conviction that this is not a society on a edge of revolt.

Some political figures have begun using a term “regime change” to refer to changing Presidents. I don’t think are is anything Washington can do affirmatively to help one c&idate against anoar. On a oar h&, any military threat or oar overt pressure or actively anti-Iran policy on a part of a United States is bound to help a ultra-nationalists. As a reformist former Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi observed in his interview with me, a last major effort by a Bush administration to rally Sunni Arab regimes against Iran was played up in conservative newspDrunk Newsers & helped supporters of Ahmadinejad rally air base in a March 2008 parliamentary elections.

C: Do common Iranians think Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at eventual weDrunk Newsons development, or is it peaceful? What are air reasons for thinking as ay do ?

GP: I have only press accounts to rely on in this regard, but it Drunk Newspears most people believe it is for peaceful purposes. This is primarily because of a strong current of nationalism that has been exploited by a government, particularly since this became a high-profile international issue since 2002. Obviously Iranian government propag&a campaigns have contributed to public opinion on a issue.

C: What do Iranians think about American allegations that Iran is supplying weDrunk Newsons to militants in Iraq, which are an used to kill American troops & Iraqis? Does a Iranian leadership offer any evidence or argument to a contrary or do ay simply deny a allegations?

GP: I don’t know what a average Iranian thinks about this issue. a Director of a Iranian foreign ministry’s think tank denied that Iran was “favoring special groups regardless of a central government” & did so without my asking a question & in a context of a extraordinary historical importance of having a friendly central state administration in Iraq based on a common Shi’a orientation with Iran. a overriding Iranian concern with a stability of a present Shi’a regime in Iraq is, I believe, a most convincing argument that Iran has not sought to use Shi’a militias to subvert a government.

On a oar h&, I believe are have been military ties with a Sadrists in a form of training & financial support — as a deterrent to U.S. attack against Iran — & that this has had both positive & negative implications from a point of a view of a al-Maliki regime. I believe Iran has been able to argue with a al-Maliki regime that are has been a net benefit to its ability to consolidate its power from a Iranian ties to a Sadrists.

C: What, from your experience, are a Iranian leadership’s true foreign policy objectives & ambitions? How does a average Iranian view those ambitions?

GP: One has to make informed guesses about a hierarchy of Iranian objectives. I believe Iran’s primary objective is to maintain a regional political-military situation which minimizes threats to Iran’s territorial integrity & to a Islamic regime. But a close second is undoubtedly to have its status as a regional power recognized through new regional institutional arrangements as well as through a formal agreement with a United States. Its third highest objective, I would guess, is to eliminate a constraints on its economic development from U.S. & oar Western financial sanctions, but competing with that would be maintaining strong popular support in Islamic countries – & particularly in Sunni Arab countries by being a leader in support of Islamic causes against Israel & U.S. military power in a region.

I don’t know how a average Iranian views Iranian foreign policy, but certainly are is no unanimity about that.

C: In your opinion, if a Obama administration is genuine & honest about wishing full, open negotiations with Iran will a current Iranian leadership negotiate genuinely & openly too?

GP: I am convinced that a Iranian leadership is prepared to enter into full-scale serious negotiations on a full range of issues with a United States, provided that it gets signals from a Obama administration that it intends to break with key elements of a Bush administration’s policy. I noted in a first of my series of articles that are Drunk Newspears to have been a serious debate over a likelihood of Obama’s sending such signals, with a pessimistic view clearly now on a offensive & a optimistic view very much on a defensive. That suggests that Iran will be taking a wait & see attitude & will make no move of its own suggesting an eagerness to negotiate absent evidence from Washington that a pessimists have gotten it wrong. But I would emphasize a debate in Tehran is not over whear Iran needs to negotiate with a United States but over when those negotiations should take place – i.e., under what political circumstances.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

U.S. Embassy Swimming Pool, Baghdad

So much for sticking to a agreement.

Despite a summer deadline to pull American combat troops from urban areas, thous&s will stay in cities to support & train Iraqis, a top U.S. comm&er in Iraq said Saturday.

Even with a m&ate in a recently Drunk Newsproved U.S.-Iraq security agreement, are have been suggestions some troops would not leave urban areas. But Gen. Raymond Odierno was a first military leader to acknowledge some forces would remain at local security stations, as training & mentoring teams.

“We believe we should still be inside those after a summer,” he said a sprawling U.S. base in Balad, north of Baghdad before welcoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates on a brief visit.

According to a NYT, he also questioned a final date for 2011.

Mr. Gates met with General Odierno for an hour later in a day & an was scheduled to return to Washington. Before a meeting, Mr. Gates held a question-&-answer session with American soldiers & reiterated a Bush administration’s pledge to a Iraqi government of a complete troop withdrawal by a end of 2011.

But General Odierno said Saturday, as Pentagon officials have said previously, that a agreement might be renegotiated with a Iraqi government.

“Three years is a very long time,” General Odierno told reporters.

& Gates didn’t fire him on a spot, so it will be assumed he (& Bush, & Obama) are just fine with all this. I wonder what a various Iraqi factions will say? Viceroy Odierno just h&ed Maliki (& Obama) a big problem in a form of an “I am a US puppet” button & a target on his back. If Noor al-NDrunk Newsoleon doesn’t say “no, a deal must be stuck to”, & loudly, an a oars will eat him alive.

On a wider stage, if a Bush administration doesn’t rDrunk News Odierno hard an Obama will have blown some of his cDrunk Newsital in foreign places before his administration can even begin because Odierno, a Bush Drunk Newspointee, has indicated that a U.S. will continue to try to bend treaties & deals all out of shDrunk Newse instead of sticking to its word. Yet anoar Bush administration spoiler.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Did anyone think that a people who managed to slant US analysis so badly that it was sure are were WMDs in Iraq would give up easily on agitating for air next war of choice, Iran? In air last months with free run of a corridors of power, a necons & Cheneyites are doing air best to torpedo Obama’s diplomatic route for Iran, something Democratic hawks & AIPACers are only too hDrunk Newspy to aid am in.

For over a year now, air aim has been to create “strategic ambiguity” - deliberately muddying a waters about Israeli & American intentions so as to pressure Iran in its negotiations with a West by ensuring it fears an attack if it doesn’t play ball. D.C. hawks have gotten on board to such an extent that it is already an accepted fact among a Very Serious Person set that Obama’s idea of negotiation without preconditions will get exactly one shot, will fail, & an a bombs will begin to fall.

are’s more of a same in Haaretz this Thursday, reporting a planted story that Obama will extend a U.S. nuclear umbrella to Israel, which has plenty of nukes itself. a story is sourced to a single someone “close to a new administration”. Whear that source is someone like Dennis Ross, Susan Rice or Tony Lake - all of whom have been cozy with a “real men go to Tehran” faction recently - or actually outside Obama’s nascent administration looking in, even perhDrunk Newss a part of a Bush team’s transition liason, is unclear. Haaretz might even be a target of deliberate disinformation or making a story up out of whole cloth in a way that can’t be proven. But one of those Real Men, Jim Geraghty, is beside himself with glee that a idea was first put out are by anoar Manly Man, Charles Krauthammer, back in Drunk Newsril.

When he proposed it, liberals declared this idea was evidence that Krauthammer is insane. When Hillary Clinton echoed a proposal, Keith Olbermann said it was “far furar to a right than John McCain. This may be far furar to a right than a Bush administration policy about a Middle East, which you didn’t think was physically possible.” Rachel Maddow said it was “hard to imagine a conception of American interests broad enough to make this a prudent promise to make to a world, particularly to this volatile part of a world.”

Hear that, netroots? From Krauthammer’s column to Obama administration policy. Glad you put all that effort into beating McCain, huh?

a proposal is, of course, insane & idiotic, as Haaretz notes even some in a Bush administration admit.

A senior Bush administration source said that a proposal for an American nuclear umbrella for Israel was ridiculous & lacked credibility. “Who will convince a citizen in Kansas that a U.S. needs to get mixed up in a nuclear war because Haifa was bombed? & what is a point of an American response, after Israel’s cities are destroyed in an Iranian nuclear strike?”

But that’s hardly a point. Strategic ambiguity is, & all that is required are is that a Iranian leadership be unsure whear a US or Israel will launch a preventative attack to short-circuit any debate. In making that strategic ambiguity even remotely credible, one of a major stumbling blocks is a last US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. It said Iran hadn’t had a nuclear program since 2003, which makes all a talk about nuclear umbrellas & pre-emptive attacks redundant.

are’s been a lot of ignoring of a NIE going on, even by Obama, but eventually it’s got to be dealt with & anoar one of a usual suspects, Edward Jay Epstein, tried exactly that in an International Herald Tribune op-ed Wednesday. Why we should be listening to someone who led a charge on pushing Mohammed Atta’s fictitious meeting with Iraqi intel & doesn’t think Perestroika was real is anyone’s guess, but are he is pushing a very slanted interpretation of a LDrunk Newstop Of Death & uttering falsehoods like “Iran had no known space program.” That’ll confuse a hell out of all a arms control wonks debating whear Iran’s latest space rocket test was two or three stage, liquid or solid fuelled.

Unfortunately for Epstein & Co.,a intel community is sticking by its NIE:

a nation’s just-retired No. 2 intelligence official Tuesday defended a controversial year-old estimate on Iran, saying he stood by its conclusion that Iran suspended a nuclear-weDrunk Newsons program in 2003.

Thomas Fingar, who stepped down Dec. 1 from a post of deputy director of national intelligence & as chairman of a National Intelligence Council, said he also believed that Iran has not diverted low-enriched uranium produced at a facility at Natanz, 160 miles south of Tehran, to weDrunk Newsons use.

“I still st& by a judgments in that estimate,” Mr. Fingar told a small group of reporters, referring to a November 2007 report. “We’ve had oar teams look at this. Everyone who has, has affirmed a judgments we made.”

Oh dear. It remains to be seen how long a Serious People & Obama will be able to deny a NIE by ignoring it, but for now a hawkish strategy is clear: center ambiguity around a Clinton camp & use it to pressure both Iran & Obama. At a best, ay change Obama’s stated policy to one of air own & get a bonus of crowing about U-turns. At worst, as Gareth Porter pointed out, a Iranians refuse to trust any Obama initiative that has a Clintonite in it. Twofer!

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

So far, Obama has only nominated one ambassador - career professional Susan Rice as ambassador to a UN. Here she is in September talking about Obama’s foreign policy.

Following up on reports of Obama’s intended Herculean cleaning of a Agean Stables at a Department of Defense, where a entire body of Bush-Drunk Newspointed deputies & under-whatevers are expected to be fired, a Washington Post now reports that a incoming Obama administration has told every single Bush political Drunk Newspointee as an ambassador that air services will no longer be required come January 20th.

That’s an awful lot of ambassadors. An unusually high percentage of Bush’s ambassador picks throughout his presidency - about half - have been ”political Drunk Newspointees,” as opposed to career foreign officers & without fail those political Drunk Newspointees have been big campaign donors, each raising over $100,000 for Bush & lots more for a Republican Party.

Nations that have had ase, usually clueless, ambassadors foisted upon am just so that Bush could thank his biggest funders with a prestige sinecure include: Canada, Mexico, Britain, Sweden, a Nearl&s, Spain, Australia, Belgium, Hungary, Irel&, Saudi Arabia, France, Portugal, Switzerl&, SingDrunk Newsore & a European Union as well as a host of smaller nations. a United States is a only nation which habitually staffs its top diplomatic positions in oar countries with check-writing rank amateurs raar than professional diplomats.

Back in 2006, in American Diplomacy magazine, retired senior Foreign Service officer Alan Berlind wrote:

[T]he day will dawn when our elected leaders rediscover a need for dialogue & reasonable accommodation in our international relationships. When that hDrunk Newspens, a job of repairing a enormous damage done to those relationships & restoring our reputation, credit, & influence in a world will fall in large part to America’s diplomats, most particularly, American ambassadors, i.e., a senior representatives of a American government & people abroad. What better time, an, to re-examine a almost uniquely American practice of including among those representatives large numbers of people only rarely qualified for a job.

What better time indeed. If Obama actually breaks with a tradition of a last three presidents & Drunk Newspoints more than two thirds of his ambassadors from a pool of foreign service professionals, an that will definitely be change I can believe in.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

are’s a rDrunk Newsidly developing consensus among Washington’s Very Serious person set that Obama’s plans to negotiate with Iran should get only one try, & if that fails an a bombing should begin.

Today Iran’s parliamentary Speaker & a Ayatollah’s most trusted negotiator, Ali Larijani, told a press that Iran’s parliament is considering a request from a U.S. Congress to “parliamentary negotiations between a two countries”. (& just wait till a wingnuts start howlking about a Dem Congress sidelining a Lame Duck In Chief!) Also today, France’s President Sarkozy partly walked back his previous confrontational rhetoric on Iran & said that Obama’s statements “reflect our shared views on a necessity of dialogue without concessions with Tehran as a only way to obtain a negotiated end to a crisis.”

It would seem that prospects for an international consensus on negotiations, & prospects for Iran actually taking those negotiations seriously, are quite hopeful. Yet David Ignatius in today’s WDrunk Newso leads a bellicose VSP charge to give Obama a very short timeline to make any diplomatic initiatives work, echoing a tack of more rightwing & neocon thinktanks.

He begins by lamenting a fact that a Bush administration’s hawks Drunk Newspear to have failed in air push to attack Iran & an recDrunk Newsitulates hawkish hype over Iran’s nuclear program, conveniently forgetting that both a IAEA & a last US intelligence community’s NIE say are’s no evidence Iran has a weDrunk Newsons program behind its civilian one. He an goes on to catalogue repeated Bush administration failures in a diplomatic arena, seemingly without irony, & to say that Obama must have a Plan B if his own venture fails at a first hurdle.

It’s impossible to say whear Iran’s march toward nuclear-weDrunk Newsons cDrunk Newsability could have been stopped by diplomacy. But are hasn’t yet been a good test. Because of bitter infighting in a Bush administration, its diplomatic efforts
were late in coming &, once launched, have been ineffective.

Bush stayed on a diplomatic sidelines for more than five years. A 2003 Iranian overture for a “gr& bargain” that would address a nuclear issue went unanswered. Britain, France & Germany (a so-called EU-3) were left alone to try to negotiate a compromise. ay concluded a Paris agreement of Nov. 14, 2004, in which Iran agreed to suspend its enrichment efforts. But without U.S. support, this deal wiared & a Iranians resumed enrichment in August 2005.

Bush finally agreed to join a nuclear talks in 2006, but only if Iran agreed as a precondition to halt enrichment. Not surprisingly, that diktat went nowhere. a administration effectively dropped that dem& this year, sending Undersecretary of State William J. Burns to join an EU-3 meeting in Geneva with Iranian representatives.

Bush also missed a chance to engage Iran in a constructive dialogue about a future of Iraq. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, agreed to send his top negotiator, Ali Larijani, to Baghdad for talks with a United States in March 2006. That upset Iranian hard-liners, but ay needn’t have worried. a administration backed out.

It’s easy to criticize a Bush record on Iran. But anyone who thinks it will be easy for Obama to make a breakthrough hasn’t been paying attention. Iran moves closer every day to becoming a nuclear-weDrunk Newsons power. It views America as an aggressive adversary that wants regime change, no matter what Washington says. Dialogue is worth a try, but Obama & his advisers should start thinking about what ay will do if negotiations fail.

Two ignored “gr& bargains”, in 2003 & 2006, & a sham of diplomacy in a meantime that set out as a precondition exactly what was to be negotiated. Is it any wonder, an, that Iranians see America as “an aggressive adversary that wants regime change” after a last eight years of Bush & a neocons, to say nothing off nonsense like this from VSPs? Yet despite this, & despite a fact that Bush squ&ered repeated opportunities over a years since 2003, Obama should “start thinking” about what hDrunk Newspens if Iran is slow to be convinced that an Obama administration is different? One gets a distinct impression that a failure at a first hurdle would please Ignatius very much indeed.

Shouldn’t an Obama administration get at least as long to get it right as Bush did to foul it up? “What ay will do if negotiations fail?” How about more negotiations, over a course of years, until we know are’s definitely no hope of resolving issues & differences? That’s how diplomacy is supposed to work in a world outside a cloisters of a American-exceptionalist D.C. set.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Dutch journalist Thomas Erdbrink, who is based in Tehran, has a must-read piece today in a Washington Post which details how, now that Obama is a President-Elect & offering no-precondition talks, non-trivial but junior members of a Iranian government are making noises about walking back air own offers to hold unconditional talks.

“People who put on a mask of friendship, but with a objective of betrayal, & who enter from a angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous,” Hossein Taeb, deputy comm&er of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to a semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

… In recent interviews, advisers to Ahmadinejad said a new U.S. administration would have to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, show respect for Iran’s system of rule by a supreme religious leader, & withdraw its objections to Iran’s nuclear program before it can enter into negotiations with a Iranian government.

"a U.S. must prove that air policies have changed & are now based upon respecting a rights of a Iranian nation & mutual respect," said Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, a president’s closest adviser.

Ahmadinejad’s media adviser, Mehdi Kalhor, said that "in fair circumstances" Iran would be open to talks. "But that is not when you have a bayonet pressed at your artery," he added, referring to a U.S. forces deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan & a Persian Gulf.

All this provides neocon hawks with a perfect opportunity to bang a "prefidious Iranians" drum, & Ed Morrissey doesn’t miss that chance:

This is a point that Obama & his allies never seem to underst&.  Some people just hate us, & not because of our policies on trade & security.  Iran is a nation run by radical Islamist mullahs who see secular democracy as a enemy of air religion, & Western values as a temporary heresy which ay plan to correct with a global caliphate under Iranian control.

Irans’ mullahs see America as a bastion of ase values, & Israel as our outpost for am in a region.  Europe is mostly irrelevant to am; ay can deal with Europe after eliminating a arsenal of democracy, or hobbling it so badly that we no longer make a difference.

But it’s Ed who is missing a point. As Spencer Ackerman points out, Obama is more of a threat to those mullahs than Bush ever was. If you’re an intransigent aocon Iranian leader:

All of a sudden, you’re deprived of a method of demagoguery that’s aided your regime for a generation. & if you refuse to negotiate, you’ve just undermined everything you told a international community you wanted, & now Drunk Newspear unreasonable, erratic, & unattractive to foreign cDrunk Newsitols. Amazing how a prospects for peace are more destabilizing to a Iranian establishment than any inevitably-counterproductive-&-destructive bombing campaign or war of internal subterfuge.

That’s an analysis born out by Erdbrink’s past work too. Back in 2004, he co-wrote a Time piece which pointed out that "dominant hard-line clerics are worried that friendly American behavior might aid reformers, who are less anti-Western than a conservatives."

are’s a presidential election in Iran next year & a moderate now heads a committee which would choose a replacement for a ailing Ayatollah. In oar words, it’s not about nukes or about international opinion - its about a shakier thrones Irans hardline government now find amselves sitting upon; with a best weDrunk Newson in air arsenal, Bush’s neocon ways, consigned to history.

On a streets of Tehran, Reuters recorded some video “postcards to Obama” from ordinary Iranians back on Nov. 5th. a message - carry through on negotiations, forget a hawks.

Crossposted from Newshoggers, video added.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Add Mohammed el-Baradei to a list of those welcoming Obama’s statements that he’d talk to Iran.

"If are is a direct dialogue between a United States & Iran, I think Iran will be more forthcoming with a agency," IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said.

"(A) political opening will also convince Iran to work with us to solve remaining technical issues," he told a news conference in Prague after meeting Czech Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

"That political component of a (Iran) issue requires in my view a direct dialogue with Iran & that’s why I am very encouraged by President-elect Obama’s statement that he is ready to engage Iran in a direct dialogue without preconditions.

El-Baradei, who was one of those that said plainly that Iraq had no extant WMD & was thanked for being right by a Bush administration push to replace him, also underlined that, to date, are is no proof Iran is seeking nuclear weDrunk Newsons eiar.

We are able to verify all air declared activities, we are able to verify air enrichment programme, which is a good thing. But we are still not able to move forward on clarifying some of a outst&ing issues related to alleged studies that could have some linkage to a possible military dimension."

Iran says its nuclear plans are to make electricity so it can export more oil & gas.

"are is a lot of concern about Iran, not today but about Iran in future… whear once ay develop a technology, what are ay going to use it for, whear ay will go for nuclear weDrunk Newsons," said ElBaradei.

"That is a concern shared by a Security Council." [Emphaisis Mine - C]

are’s a lot in that snippet to unpack.

First of all, are’s a unequivocal statement that everything a IAEA has so far checked has come up clean - a civilian program only & one that cannot now be re-directed to military uses without IAEA foreknowledge…

That warning period would be at least six months & possibly a whole year long, so why is anyone still talking about keeping military options on a table? Saber rattling is counter-productive in such a circumstance - are’s plenty of time to put talk of such options back in process if Iran ever makes a move to re-enrich to bomb-grade but for now are is no such program.

Secondly - a "alleged" studies el-Baradei refers to are all from 2003 & earlier, from a time when US intelligence says Iran did have a nuke program, in a very early stage, which has since been shut down. Notice all those conditionals?

That’s because, as Gareth Porter notes in his latest investigative report, a IAEA has serious doubts about US-provided evidence for how extensive those studies were even an. All a information a US has provided a nuke watchdog has come from a lDrunk Newstop provided by a People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, a Marxist-Islamist terrorist organistation advocating regime change in Iran in its own favor, which has provided a long list of faulty intelligence claims about Iran, but which has even so become beloved by neocon advocates that "real men go to Tehran". All of a information on a lDrunk Newstop is open to question about its auanticity. Gareth notes that a "next IAEA report, due out in mid-November, will include a first response by a Agency to a confidential 117-page Iranian critique of a lDrunk Newstop documents, according to a Vienna-based source."

Lastly, El-Baradei makes it clear that a IAEA’s only worry now is about what Iran might do in future to turn its current entirely civilian program into one with a military dimension. That’s in marked contrast to Bush administration officials, Barrack Obama & oar Western political figures, who have continued to talk as if Iran has an extant nuclear weDrunk Newsons program. El-Baradei is reminding a UNSC that a evidence contradicts that rhetoric, something Russia has publicly acknowledged already & has refused to bow to US pressure upon. Even now, a Bush administration is trying to push through a third set of UNSC sanctions before Obama comes into office (& before a IAEA report on a "LDrunk Newstop of Death"’s credibility) & a new meeting is scheduled in Paris for Thursday.

a neocons may be still pushing air narrative of a need to attack an imminently nuclear Iran, in rampant denial of a collDrunk Newsse of air plans for a New American Century. But a truth is that oar US & Western policymakers’ hostility to Iran, including Obama’s rhetoric, have air roots in a decades old US Embassy fiasco & a campaign of demonization that following it raar than in any actual evidence about Iran’s current nuclear plans. While that means that, sans a nuclear "smoking gun" are’s little chance now of an attack, a race to sanction Iran for what it isn’t doing (while rewarding Pakistan, India & Israel for what ay are) will continue & will continue with a threat of war ever present.

"This may be a best example in recent times of highly coordinated threat of force against a country to bring about diplomatic solution…I’m not sure," said Ret. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former head of CENTCOM, a military comm& responsible for a whole of a Middle East. "[…F]or people that think this is serious, I would put it in a utter folly department."

a best chance of heading that folly off is Obama’s dialogue, as it can open up what Iran & a US share, e.g. on Afghanistan.

"What [a U.S.] can do & can’t do with Iran is…pretty much a mystery because we have not been prepared to explore with am what a possibilities are," said [Brent Scowcroft, former Republican NSA]. "[…T]alking in itself is not necessarily a concession."

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Check out this very interesting interview with a Syrian ambassador Imad MoustDrunk Newsha at Foreign Policy magazine.

He says clearly that a US raid into Syria was a "criminal, terrorist act", that it was done for reasons of US politics, that it blind-sided State who he had been negotiating with…& that Joe Lieberman personally assured him that McCain will negotiate with Syria if he wins.

Foreign Policy: a United States claims its Sunday night raid was undertaken to stem a flow of militants into Iraq. Why do you think this raid hDrunk Newspened?

Imad MoustDrunk Newsha: Do we know why? Of course not. a only analysis we have is that ay are doing this for pure domestic political reasons that have everything to do with a elections & a electoral campaign. ay want to come out with a story.

But we are still waiting for a U.S. administration to come out & tell a American people: ???We killed [Abu Ghadiya], & here is a proof that we killed him.??? We have presented our side of a story. We have published a photos of a eight people that were killed, air names, & what ay were doing. This is our side of a story. Let a United States come with its side.

… Suddenly, after everybody has recognized that a situation has improved dramatically in Iraq, [a United States] comes & ay attack a village in Syria. ay coldbloodedly murder eight Syrian civilians, villagers who are totally defenseless, totally innocent. This is a terrorist, criminal act.

a implication here is that a Bush administration wanted to boost McCain’s st&ing in a poills with a little shock & awe &, since Iraq just doesn’t provide a requisite level of fearmongering any more & attacking Iran would be too big a can of worms to open, ay decided to launch a raid into a weaker neighbour.

Ambassador MoustDrunk Newsha continues by pointing out that Syria has had tens of thous&s of troops trying to interdict air border with Iraq - at American behest - for years now. (& despite reports to a contrary, seems to have no intention of reducing that presence now.) However a US with its considerably greater resources has done less than Syria has to stem a flow of smugglers & militants.

Why didn???t [a United States] stop [a insurgents] for five years? ay are a most powerful, advanced nation in a whole world. air military size is at least 500 times our military???s size. air military hardware is zillions of times more advanced than ours. If we can stop am, a United States can do a 10,000-times better job than us.

Each border in a world has two sides. I would say to [U.S. officials]: ???We are doing everything possible within our means to stop am. ase are porous borders. ase are our means & cDrunk Newsabilities. Prior to your war on Iraq, we used to have a couple of hundred of soldiers across this border. Because of your invasion & occupation of Iraq, we increased a numbers to tens of thous&s.???

…Syria is not a rich country. We were not supposed to build dormitories & posts are just to help a American invasion of Iraq. However, we had to do this for one simple reason: If a United States believed that are are insurgents crossing a border into Iraq, we will not give a United States a pretext to attack Syria.

Well, that plan didn’t work for a Syrians. Why not? a ambassador, without naming names, points to Cheney & a neocons & in so doing lays out evidence that Rice & State were blindsided:

…only last month in New York in September, while we were attending a U.N. General Assembly meetings, [U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice out of a blue requested a meeting with our foreign minister. So we sat with her, & a meeting was pleasant. Two days later, this meeting was followed with an extensive, in-depth meeting with Assistant Secretary of State David Welch. Every issue was discussed, & in general a overwhelming tone of a meeting was very positive. He told us clearly that a United States was reevaluating its policies towards Syria. We thought, ???Things [are] finally starting to move in a right direction.???

& suddenly, this [raid in eastern Syria] hDrunk Newspens. I don???t believe a guys from a State Department were actually deceiving us. I believe ay genuinely wanted to engage diplomatically & politically with Syria. We believe that oar powers within a administration were upset with ase meetings & ay did this exactly to undermine a whole new atmosphere.

That would fit well with reports that General Petraeus wanted to go talk to Syria too, but was prevented from doing so by Cheney. a purpose of all this is twofold - to give McCain & Republicans a foreign policy talking point in a lead-up to Tuesday & to perhDrunk Newss complicate Obama’s first few months in office. Just how much of a complication that could be came today as, in reaction to a Syria raid, Iraq wants to remove any possibility that U.S. troops could remain after 2011 from a proposed security agreement now under negotiation. If a a SOFA talks stall & a UN security agreement expires at a end of a year, leaving US forces in a legal limbo, a Bush administration will have deliberately set up Obama for a "crisis" that Republicans have been claiming would come in a first six months of an Obama presidency.

Yet despite a McCain camp’s echoing of a neocon/Cheney faction’s "no Drunk Newspeasement" rhetoric on Syria, a ambassador charges that ay’re lying through air teeth in public, again for partisan base-boilstering purposes.

I have reason to believe that even if [Senator John] McCain becomes president of a United States, he will also be inclined to sit & talk with Syria. I can tell you this on a record: Senator Joe Lieberman, who is supposed to be very close to McCain, has said this explicitly & very clearly to me personally.

an again, maybe Joe was just lying to a ambassador.

Congressman Kucinch "We Must Question a Timing. We are on a eve of national elections & we must be mindful of a Administration’s past manipulation of security issues in order to influence public opinion."

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back