Clinton: Time Running Out for Diplomacy With Iran

Rhetoric about Iranian intentions to build nuclear weapons still sputter despite intelligence consensus to the contrary

by John Glaser, March 31, 2012

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that time is running out for diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program and said negotiations are set to resume in mid-April.

Speaking to reporters attending a security conference in Saudi Arabia, Clinton said, “It is up to Iran whether they are ready to make the right choice…What is certain is that Iran’s window of opportunity to seek and obtain a peaceful resolution will not remain open forever.”

To say that time is running out may have been an allusion to the Israeli government’s warnings that a unilateral strike – preventive war – on Iran is impending. This, despite a consensus in the U.S.-Israeli military and intelligence community that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and that launching an unprovoked war would be dangerous and counterproductive.

“It soon will be clear whether Iran’s leaders are prepared to have a serious, credible discussion about their nuclear program, whether they are ready to start building the basis of a resolution to this very serious problem,” Clinton said.

But Clinton’s stated distrust in the Iranians’ sincerity in negotiating is rather laughable considering the Obama administration’s 2010 rejection of Iran’s agreement to their own proposed nuclear deal and the subsequent economic sanctions regime, punishing Iran for the high crime of not developing nuclear weapons.

Last 5 posts by John Glaser