The Guardian: Hillary Clinton‘s sudden volley of shots at Iran marks the end of an engagement policy that never really began. She wants to convince the world that the regime in Tehran is opposed to serious talks with the west. That may be true, but we’ll probably never know because in fact, no one has offered such talks.
In laying out the American approach to Iran, Clinton showed how little US foreign policy has changed since the last years of the Bush administration. President Bush famously explained that he would not negotiate with unfriendly regimes because he didn’t want to “reward bad behaviour”. He wanted states like Iran to change of their own accord, not as a result of negotiation but as a pre-condition for being allowed to negotiate.
Clinton embraces this same idea. She rejects the view that as Iran becomes more threatening and approaches nuclear breakout capacity, diplomatic engagement becomes more urgent. Instead she takes the opposite view. “We don’t want to be engaging while they are building their bomb,” she said this week.
Whether the increasingly splintered regime in Iran would or could respond to a serious offer of negotiations is highly uncertain. What is clear, though, is that the regime has not been offered this option. The Obama administration, like its predecessor, has made clear that it is interested in negotiating only one thing: curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme. No country, however, would agree to negotiate only on the question that an adversary singles out, without the chance to bring up others that it considers equally urgent.
A more promising approach would be to tell Iran what President Nixon told China 35 years ago: if you agree to consider all of our complaints, we will consider all of yours. Clinton has made clear that the US will make no such offer. Instead it clings to the decades-old American policy toward Iran: make demands of the regime, threaten it, pressure it, sanction it, seek to isolate it, and hope for some vaguely defined positive result.
Some of America’s most seasoned diplomats are eager for the chance to see what kind of a “grand bargain” they could strike with Iran. An ideal one would curb the nuclear programme, guarantee some measure of protection for brave Iranians who are being brutalised for defending democratic ideals, and give Iran security guarantees that might lure it out of its isolation and lay the groundwork for a new security architecture in the Middle East. Instead the US has fallen back on sabre-rattling. This pleases Israel, war hawks in Washington, so-called American allies like Saudi Arabia – and most of all, President Ahmadinejad and his reactionary comrades in Tehran. They thrive on confrontation, and are doing all they can to bait the US into attacking their country. It is a strategy as effective as it is dangerous.
While many of us may not support Ahmadinejad or the government, a part of me is happy that so many people came out for 22 Bahman rallies. In a way one can say that the staggering numbers that came out across the country sends a clear message to western powers: that an invasion of the country will not succeed, no way, no how! That too many Iranians while discontent support their revolution and unifiably oppose even the thought of an attack. 22 Bahman Rally has now forced Obama and company to reassess their policies admist the tremendous amount of supporters for the system. Also, to claim that people would travel for hours from one side of Tehran to the other for a drink or a piece of cake is not only demeaning, but I believe at one level, it borders racism, elitism, and classism.
The historical amnesia or ignorance of some supporters of the Iranian “Greens†is creating a dangerous liaison. We have seen such liaisons in the past, particularly the relationship between the Iraqi exiles, the US government and the AIPAC-WINEP gang. We have also seen the results. Let us not go down that road. If despotism in Iran is to end, it must be ended by the people of Iran, without any help or appeal to those countries who are interested in Iran only insofar as their colonial aims are concerned.
http://www.counterpunch.org/sasan02182010.html
Interesting article by Robert Perry with regard to US media acting as the facilitator again
US Media Replays Iraq Fiasco on Iran.
Major U.S. news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, are engaged in a replay of the kind of slanted coverage that paved the way to war in Iraq, only this time regarding Iran
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/021810.html
Has Mr. Makhmalbaf ever read an in-depth book on the history of US foreign policy? Does he know how foreign policy is made in the US? Does he think that such policies are actually made by the US president? Does he believe that since President Obama’s color of skin is dark and his IQ, compared to his predecessor, is above room temperature, the US policy toward Iran would be any different? Has he ever studied the institutions or lobbies that make US foreign policy? Does he know who the US friends in the Middle East are? Can he name one “democrat†among them? Why does he think that the US, with its very dark history in the Middle East, particularly in Iran, can bring about, or even support, democracy in Iran?
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Makhmalbaf’s knowledge of history of the US foreign policy is only matched by his knowledge of unilateral and multilateral sanctions against Iran. He certainly has not studied the 30-year old sanction policy of the US toward Iran. He does not seem to know that numerous economic sanctions levied against Iran have always been “targeted.†They were targeted, for example, against Iran wining the Iran-Iraq War. Or they were targeted against Iran helping the Palestinians. They have even been targeted numerous times against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), both in terms of US unilateral sanctions and multilateral sanctions. Makhmalbaf does not appear to have actually read the text of any sanction laws or resolutions passed against Iran—such as United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737, 1747, and 1803— to see who the targeted individuals or companies are. He does not seem to know how these sanctions work and how, even though specifically “targeted,†they bring about severe economic hardship for ordinary people in Iran and kill and injure fellow Iranians because, due to the inability to procure spare parts, the dilapidated planes are unsafe and prone to crash.
Sure. There are lots of problems in Iran and I agree that the government has to do a lot more to satisfy its constituents. But when a group of dissidents are been taken advantage of by the intelligence agencies of the West, their legitimate demands, albeit justified,will be seriously questioned. In particular, when its leaders are falsely accusing the rest of the nation of “electoral fraud” and their demands are strongly supported by the enemies of Iran. The Green government had some legitimate demands. But its leaders made a serious blunder and back stabbed their supporters when they sided with US, Israel, Britain. Green movement needs serious reorganization of its ranks and files to become a legitimate opposition movement.
Yes! These people are right, let’s fight w/ the Western powers. Let’s isolate ourselves and fight the whole world. Everyone around the globe want to destroy Iran and everyone is bad. Israel wants to occupy Iran and enslave its people. U.S wants to destroy Iran.
22 Bahman was a simple government run show and all the Left felt for it AGAIN. IRI bused in thousands of people from different cities, forced government workers to check in and show up to the protest, and of course students to show up. What amazes me here is how everybody here is skeptical of U.S and the international community and its treatment of Iran.
This is the same mentality that Iranian government has always tried to force it upon its citizens through propaganda. I don’t understand, among all the nations around the world, why is it that Iran is the prime target for all these countries?
New book that challenges conventional narrative of 53 coup
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0230579272/ref=pe_5050_14290070_snp_dp
This path breaking study unearths new documentary evidence to suggest the truth lies elsewhere and that Mosaddeq’s fall actually took Washington and London by complete surprise. The author provides compelling evidence to suggest that the toppling of Mosaddeq was rooted primarily in internal Iranian dynamics and that prominent clerics of the time, notably the grand Shiite Marja of the time, Ayatollah Boroujerdi, played a crucial role.
And we thought our careers were special?
http://www.truthout.org/gaza-fishermen-fight-keep-a-way-life-alive57055