With Iran’s Intelligence Ministry taking the unusual step last week of issuing a public report on negotiations with the international community being “necessary,” there was a lot of speculation that Iran’s appetite for talks was growing.
But while this report and the public comments from a lot of Iranian officials tell this story, other senior officials are said to be opposed to the idea, or at least pessimistic enough about the prospect that they don’t believe it is the right time to bother with direct talks with the US.
Its hard to blame the pessimists, either, as US officials have at times denied that the talks were even a possibility in the first place, and at other times they are talking about adding even more onerous demands than the last time.
Indeed, the history of negotiations shows extremely bad faith from the West, with Iran once even accepting the US offer for a deal only to have the US withdraw the offer and angrily condemn its acceptance. Though talks seem like a necessity with Iran hoping to see an end to the sanctions, the reality that there is probably no level of concession that would be good enough to satisfy the US is going to put a damper on a lot of those hopes.
The Iranian "pessimists" are really just realists, who understand that the eminent war with Israel and NATO may be too far advanced for any meaningful dialog that would dissuade such a war without calamitous concessions that merely weaken Iran and delay, rather than mend fences toward normalized relations. These Iranian realists understand economics and politics altogether too well to misunderstand nuances regarding foreign leaders who paint themselves into the proverbial corner, plus they no doubt also revere their nation's independence and sovereignty — something corrupt Western leaders have long forsaken. Postponing WW3 while economic conditions deteriorate into justification for war anyway only delays the inevitable, like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while staying on-course for that iceberg.
First of all, no negotiation will truly succeed if one is trying to destroy one's negotiating partner or continue to wage war and bring about regime change, while at the same time going through the motions of negotiating. One can only expect that it would be viewed by the other side as counterproductive, and coercive. Certainly an Iranian leadership that is both pragmatic and moralistic will find it hard to accept this type of negotiation, even though up to the present it has shown great patience, and therefore made best efforts to develop trust and reach an agreement.
Second, it is hard to believe that Secretary Clinton (both as a woman and with her history of self defeating insults and threats) could ever really succeed at diplomacy with the Iranians. Susan Rice, being cut from the same cloth would suffer similar failures.
So, if the U.S. does want to come to an agreement, it must be willing to understand, acknowledge and address the Iranians' core interests AND its rights under international law, and accept a fair compromise, so that both sides can come away with real value. It can only do so with negotiators who are skilled, experienced and inspire trust.
So, one imagines that for its team, the U.S. should bring in people like Nick Burns, Paul Pillar and Flynt Leverett- and designate someone like Bill Richardson as Secretary of State, i.e., someone who has a much better reputation for being non-confrontational, professional and fair, than a person like Susan Rice who may have been politically adept inside the Administration but weak on all these counts in the international arena.
America is doing nothing that Iran can except.Threats of war are illegal so is the murder of Irans Scientists.Also the things done to Irans civilian nucular program with computer type warfare.America is going to mlet Israel use it till nothing is left then Americans will see they are not friends and never were.It's sad but all anyone has to do is look at Israels history and all the broken UN resolutions to see how the warmongers are and it's not Iran.