Beginning Tuesday in Vienna, the P5+1 are starting a particularly important new round of nuclear talks with Iran, this time focusing on drafting a “grand compromise” that will be the basis for a final settlement.
The State Department insists they are “absolutely comfortable” with starting work on the draft deal, saying they think it is at least possible for a deal to be finalized by July 20, when the interim pact expires.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) say that Iran has been “ahead of schedule” in implementing the interim deal, and has been cooperating closely with them on answering questions.
Israel has been loudly opposing the idea of a final nuclear deal, and lobbying Congress to block any US involvement in any pact. The Obama Administration has tried to calm this lobbying by downplaying the chances of a deal.
Nice to hear that there still are civilized nations in the world trying to negotiate a sensible solution to disagreements. The USA is too dominated by Israeli interests to qualify as a "civilized nation looking for a sensible solution". We need to have the grace to step aside.
Now that the idea of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is dead, if it ever was alive, the Israelis can focus on killing the US-Iranian deal. It is not outside the realm of possibility that Israel unilaterally attacks Iran, as they have threatened for years, especially if it there is an US and Iran deal awaiting finalization and signature.
The Israelis have been trying to sabotage any deal with Iran for years. They have been screeching about non-existent nuclear weapons for over 20 years. The closest they came to an attack was in the early summer of 2008 when all their top officials came to DC to whine and ask for help in an attack. Bush would turn them down because all our intell stated that Iran was not working on nukes. The price of crude oil jumped to $150 per barrel before Bush turned them down. Eventually the US might get smart and realize all their saber rattling drives up the price of crude and the insider hedge funds are tipped about a week before the threats to attack start. Ehud Barak, the Minister of Defense became a millionaire with his side job as a consultant to a hedge fund. News that we haven't seen in US papers is that Ehud Ohlmert the past Prime Minister of Israel has been sentenced to seven years in prison for bribery.
Re: Ohlmert…it made the NBC national this evening. I was surprised also. On the price of crude, you sound like a pricy crude is a bad thing. Not for the oil guys in Texas…Bush had the intelligence long before he turned them down. They were just waiting for the price to get where they wanted it. Purely business. Bush and Cheney and crew may have been truly evil, but they weren't stupid.