State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday that there’s been “modest progress” during the Iran nuclear deal negotiations that are ongoing in Vienna in a rare positive comment from the US since the talks restarted at the end of November.
“There was some modest progress in the talks last week,” Price said. “We hope to build on that this week.” Price said the negotiations are focused on sanctions relief and what steps Iran has to take to bring its civilian nuclear program back into the strict limits set by the JCPOA.
Before Tuesday, most US comments on the negotiations have been extremely negative. Biden administration officials have been accusing Iran of not taking the talks seriously and have been warning that there is not much time left to revive the deal.
When the negotiations first restarted, the US demanded that Iran accept a draft agreement that was reached with the previous Iranian government back in June. Iran wanted more sanctions relief and submitted new draft proposals, which is what the negotiations are now based around.
On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Western powers brought a new “realism” to the talks this week. “We sense a retreat, or rather realism from the Western parties in the Vienna negotiations, that there can be no demands beyond the nuclear accord,” Khatibzadeh said.
What the negotiations boil down to is whether or not President Biden is willing to be reasonable and give Iran the necessary sanctions relief to revive the JCPOA. So far, the Biden administration has taken a hardline approach towards Iran by refusing to lift all Trump-era sanctions, imposing new sanctions amid negotiations, coordinating closely with Israel, and making veiled comments that could be taken as military threats.
Joe “I’m a Zionist” Biden is never going to rejoin the JCPOA.
I hope you’re wrong. After all, Biden can, and does, say any damn fool thing that pops in his demented mind.
Report on FOX, ‘Biden Administration desperate to sign a deal, any deal and willing to give Iran everything’ (talking points pre-written and pulled out of a box)
This is the easiest way to reduce gasoline prices. Just pullback on maximum aggression.
Or, …just a tactic to get Iran to drop their guard on the eve of shock-n-awe.
The U.S. has nothing left with which to shock and awe with.
Gulf War II was preceded by one of the most massive logistical buildups of arms in history.
The U.S. would need triple that to take on Iran and win.
They would need more than triple that to invade, conquer, and, for some extended length of time, occupy Iran. Unlike Saddam’s regime in Iraq, the Iranians would likely have significant foreign assistance in resisting such an outcome. The Russians would likely not be inclined to tolerate a US presence on the Caspian Sea, on which Russia and Iran share a marine border. So not just triple — quite likely impossible with any amount of military assets without igniting a large multi-national war.
The question is how much non-invasion/occupation force the US could bring to bear without igniting such a conflagration, what that force would be sufficient to accomplish, and what it would end up costing both militarily and economically. Which might be quite a bit on the first two metrics, and almost certainly would be quite a bit on the third.
If the US regime thought it could attack Iran in a big way with impunity, it already would have.
It’s as simple as that. The fake, weak, religiously divided Iraqi nation blew up in all the hawks faces. The Bush Administration certainly believed they could transform the middle east into a region of secular democracies before that. Even the most ardent hawks realized there was no way we could beat Iran, a religiously united millennia old civilization with real military capabilities, only truer today.
You’ve misinterpreted my position to say there would be a U.S. attack, which is not true.
In-context, I’m arguing there’s no shock-and-awe war happening because the U.S. can’t fight one; the resources aren’t there. Not the money, not the conventional firepower.
Raiding like Israel does in Syria, isn’t worth the trouble since the U.S. position in Iraq and various nearby Gulf facilities are hostage.
First of all, triple Gulf War II resources doesn’t exist so predicting they would need more is a moot point.
Second, Russia and China might intervene directly in such a hypothetical war, but they would be more useful to Iran sending money, giving diplomatic support and satellite intel, and through Russia, smuggling in advanced arms and medical aid.
Third, the Iranians probably can’t standup fight an advanced power like the U.S., if the U.S. did have the power to invade, which they don’t.
Triple Gulf War II resources, force multiplied by today’s tech advances, would be sufficient for the U.S. to get into a losing quagmire symbolically holding a few key cities and military sites.
The U.S. and any coalition of the stupid would then have to exit likely within three years, against an Iran government-in-hiding operating not unlike the Taliban only better.
The US isn’t going to try to occupy Iran. Iran is too big and too populous. If they thought the Iraq insurgency was bad… Iran can put at least a million militia and possibly as high as 11 million on the street.
No, the US is going to concentrate on air power just like it did in Iraq. It will try to control the Strait of Hormuz (and fail), maybe try to occupy the Iranian coast to prevent mines (and fail). But so long as the US can deliver high-altitude B52 bombing runs on Iran – which is basically forever – the war will go on.
The neocons and Israel don’t care who wins or loses. The important thing is that the US destroys Iranian infrastructure like it did to Iraq – and that it all costs money. As long as the war continues for at least as long as the Afghan war, everyone – except US soldiers and Iranian civilians and the US taxpayer – will be happy. The MIC and their banks will make hundreds of billions of dollars, the oil companies will make tens of billions as the oil price goes vertical, etc. Same as it ever was.
However, none of this will happen until Israel can get the US to help it get rid of Hezbollah in Lebanon (if that’s even possible.)
Again, triple Gulf War II resources don’t exist; that’s why war isn’t happening. If they did…
Occupation would be tolerated by Iranians to avoid civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure. Saddam’s forces that weren’t destroyed, similarly retreated.
Iran, simply wouldn’t surrender and likely would persist and harass occupation forces from a government-in-hiding like the Taliban, only be better at it.
If the U.S. goes with Israeli salami-tactics air raiding,
B-52s should be child’s play to take down for Iran. B2 and B-35 stealth… unknown. It would be a very expensive air war.
Iran does have Russian S-300s and copied what they could for the Bavar 373.
Unlike Russia in Syria or even NATO in Kosovo, Iran has no reason to hold back once the shooting starts. They have the US in Iraq and US installations across the Gulf to strike at.
All of which is again, why war isn’t happening, which is my original position.
Not happening. We are in no position to do so, and the consequences of this, the closure of Hormuz and the destruction of the Fifth Fleet if it attempts to reopen it, are well-known to the Pentagon, and particularly the US Navy. They know they cannot do shit about a Hormuz blockade.
The US has war gamed an attack on Iran and the US lost. That was before Iranian recent advances in missile technology. Iran now sees the following. Yes, a war will be devastating to Iran but all US military bases in the area will be destroyed, Israeli infrastructure will be destroyed (possibly no more Israel in its current form) and yes the US will leave a la Afghanistan.
Oh, I am well aware of the Millennium Challenge War Game. Those are the consequences I referred to
Unfortunately the neocons and Israel don’t care what the US Pentagon thinks. Otherwise Iraq probably wouldn’t have happened.
Yes, the operative doctrine isn’t “winning”, even less “democratic nation building”, or any other of the species of positive outcomes. It’s “A Clean Break”.
Actually no, in some circumstances winning matters.
Losing an air war against Iran is easy; Iran doesn’t give in and maybe shoots down a few aircraft and missiles.
Kosovo and Libya were all ‘losing’ wars as long as they kept resisting.
I think we’ve had this conversation before
Reality also doesn’t care what the neocons and Israelis think.
Aircraft, missiles, and bombs and the cash to keep them coming are reality-based things.
The easiest way to ease U.S. gasoline prices is to lift restrictions on Canadian oil imports, letting pipelines go ahead and ending Green-imposed injunctions against existing ones.
Iran oil, isn’t really that important. There’s still an oil glut, even with OPEC Plus holding back.
The U.S. wants higher oil prices, because they export the stuff now.
Inevitably, though, that means higher domestic prices at the pump even for U.S. consumers.
>>>The U.S. wants higher oil prices, because they export the stuff now.<<< No we don't and we never did. Under Trump, we produced 13m bpd while consuming 19m bpd. Currently, we produce 12m bpd. If we lift sanctions on Ven. and Iran, world oil production would increase by 4m bpd.
Obama lifted the US oil trade ban from 2014-2014.
U.S. oil exports have been hitting record highs every year since, exceeding 3.0 million barrels a day, yearly, by 2020.
The US energy industry continues to orient itself for export not only of oil but natural gas.
From 2019-20 the US was a net energy exporter, exports exceeding imports by some 3.46 quadrillion BTUs.
(Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), various links.)
I do not think the Biden Administration wants a catastrophic war. Thus I am perplexed by its failure to simply lift the sanctions as should have been done on January 20th, 2021. If that happened, Iranian enrichment activity would be in sharp decline at this point.
That’s because the tail that wags the dog won’t let Biden reduce sanctions on Iran.
I think it is more likely that this is a duplicitous and bad faith attempt to obtain non nuclear concessions from Iran, particularly its ballistic missile arsenal that could easily overwhelm Iron Dome and destroy every bit of Israel (though Israel has second strike nuclear capabilities so that’s a dangerous road no matter the provocation)
Modest progress; Translation:
U.S. former position: “Surrender or die!”
U.S. new position: “Surrender and die!”
Israel: “We are pleased with the progress of Iran talks…”
The US is finally learning the skills of negotiations from Iran…!
Hehe. They’ve got a looooong way to go before they can negotiate with Persians. It’s a culture that negotiates everything from the price of a pack of gum upwards.
Israel is always the fly in the ointment… I see Biden as an ineffectual tool, with puppet strings tied to Israel. Biden goes this way or that, depending on which way the strings are being pulled. “Coordinating with Israel” is a broad expanse and I see the puppet strings being pulled tighter and tighter. It will be difficult for Biden to traverse all of the strings in an effort to come up with a reasonable and productive deal, still having his clothes intact. Kind of an emperor has no clothes type of scenario…
True, but a puppet with an empty gun is still a puppet with an empty gun.
Empty gun, empty gun… That can be construed in a few different ways and none of them terribly flattering…
The US-Israeli alliance would like Iran to be the Iran of 2015. It is not. Its been steadily building up alliances (Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq , Yemen) and commercial networks – see this article https://thecradle.co/Article/analysis/5101 . So the reality is that 1) Militarily they may not be able to defeat Iran 2) Its unlikely that Biden can get back to the JCPOA given the state of US politics and 3) Iran is developing its economic depth. So what will the scenario be in 10years time? It will be very different to today.
Different, yet we’ll have seen it before.
The latest example – Afghanistan, one moment the biggest jewel in the footstool of the NATO Empire, the next suddenly an independent nation state after years of growing in the shadows of Western imperial hubris.
Iran should emerge be a bit less rough around the edges. In perhaps less than ten years, Iran will be a key Eurasian and Asian world trade partner against whom Western sanctions just don’t matter.
NATO is trying to play crudely the same game in Taiwan; odd that they seem to think geopolitics is single-player.
Must be all those strategic computer wargames.