Plenty of Threats as Iran ‘Deadline’ Looms

Despite Offer of Talks, Western Officials Still Back Sanctions

by Jason Ditz, September 02, 2009

The Obama Administration has repeatedly put forth the month of September as the “deadline” for Iran to begin international talks regarding its nuclear program, and as the month begins Western officials are raising the prospect of massive new sanctions against the Iranian government to punish it.

This comes in spite of the fact that only yesterday Iran’s top negotiator, Said Jalili, said his nation was ready to enter such talks and had a new proposal to resolve the dispute which is was going to make available to Western nations as a result.

In fact even as the US is condemning Iran for not agreeing to the talks, they publicly condemned the offer of talks as “meaningless” as well, claiming the offer was a plot meant to prevent Russia and China from supporting the sanctions designed to punish them for not making the offer.

The dispute is related to US claims that Iran’s nuclear energy program is a cover for a secret nuclear weapons program. This comes in spite of IAEA assurances that there was no evidence to support this claim, and even that it was able to confirm that none of the enriched uranium from the program was being diverted to any covert purpose. The US’ own National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has also said Iran has no active nuclear weapons program.

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