New Iran Talks Puts Obama’s Window of Diplomacy to the Test
Jonathan S. Tobin, COMMENTARY
-
the main thing is so long as these negotiations are ongoing, Israel is highly unlikely to use force to forestall an Iranian nuclear program
There may have been some in Tehran, as well as in Washington, who viewed Monday’s announcement that European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton had accepted an offer to resume face-to-face negotiations with Iran with relief. While the Europeans have failed repeatedly in previous attempts to entice the Iranians to stand down from their bid for nuclear weapons, the new talks would at least accomplish one very important thing. As far as the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — the nations that Ashton has the brief to represent in the talks — are concerned, the main thing is so long as these negotiations are ongoing, Israel is highly unlikely to use force to forestall an Iranian nuclear program that represents an existential threat to the existence of the Jewish state. It is this specter of an Israeli strike that has driven the EU and the United States to threaten Iran with an oil embargo.
President Obama and many of his European counterparts, not to mention his even less enthusiastic partners in Russia and China, would not have gone so far with their sometimes half-hearted push for sanctions if they were not convinced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not hesitate to act on behalf of his country’s security. But as long as someone is talking to the Iranians, the reasoning goes, the Israelis would not dare to attack Iran, even though they rightly believe the ayatollahs haven’t the slightest intention of giving up their nuclear ambitions no matter how much the West offers in return. Yet the problem for Iran in this strategy is that they must do everything they can to drag out the talks because their failure will make it difficult if not impossible for Obama to continue to argue that the window for diplomacy must be kept open.
Israeli officials have made plain their skepticism about this latest initiative. As Shabtai Shavit, a former director of the Mossad, was quoted as saying yesterday in an interview with Israel Radio:
In the past, every time the Iranians agreed to talk, the reason for their agreeing was in order to buy time in order to advance the development of their nuclear program. They didn’t invent this ruse, they learned it from the North Koreans.
Only the most naïve diplomats can believe the Iranians have any other objective in mind in agreeing to such talks other than playing for more time for their nuclear program to get closer to weaponization.
But by agreeing to negotiations so soon after President Obama’s plea for more time to allow diplomacy to work, the Iranians have set a trap for themselves. The talks will provide a clear test for Obama’s theory about the window of diplomacy. If, after the threats of an oil embargo and tighter sanctions as well as the president’s vow that he will not be content to “contain” a nuclear Iran, these new negotiations are seen to have failed as ignominiously as past efforts, then Obama and others who have argued that Israel’s demands for action are too hasty will be put in an embarrassing position.
Once the Iranians play Ashton and her clients for fools, as they have before, the notion of a diplomatic window that must be left open will be seen for what it is: merely an excuse to avoid action to avert the peril of a nuclear Iran.
Iran may think it can string along its Western dupes for a few more months and then perhaps think of some other ruse to put off a confrontation. But unlike the North Koreans, the Iranians need to understand that Israel will jump on the next failure of diplomacy as a justification for the use of force, and President Obama will, despite his own reluctance to come to grips with the imperative for action, be left with little wriggle room if he is to make good on his own promises to put a halt to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. In agreeing to these talks, the ayatollahs may have unwittingly cleared the path for an Israeli attack.
It’s sort of like the Walking dead, Zombie Apocalypse.
Once they are bitten by the MSN they die and become Israeli hating Obama loving Islamofascist enabling hypocritical Jew haters.
There is only a small group of survivors left to fight them off – on the plus side they are braindead but unfortunately there are so many o of them and they are flesh eating cannibals.
…
I don’t know if there is any cure for them once they have turned into flesh rotting leftists but I wouldn’t keep a barn full of them like Hershel did , I really wouldn’t.
There is only one certain cure.
Actually, I think I’d rather keep him on board
— as an ongoing reminder of what’s out there.
Am I hearing a threat, Junior?
Oh, please! The “Palestinian” situation is not and has never been the problem in the Middle East. The problem is that the world is full of fools and knaves, most of whom will blame Israel if their milk goes sour.
Casey you are so far out in left field you don’t even have a clue.
You have proven you are a mental midget, just don’t get it. A real Obama kool-aid drinker.
Junior fits your name.
You call Laura a traitor is just an example of the idiot you are.
Besides hating yourself who else do you hate?
It is the jihadists who are spilling American blood and enabled by traitors like yourself.
The traitors are those such as yourself who side with the jihadists.
I hope Ted gets rid of the bilge here.
My dear Laura, those are not our polls, they are Israel firster neo-conservatives pushing us into another war, and pretending they speak for us. It will not happen, but if this time they did succeed in getting us to attack Iran, the blowback would be felt by American Jews.. Cowboys and Zionists, would be the name of the game, and it remember how it ended for the Indians.
Either way, you lose. You do not care for our country cept for what you can get out of us, your fake polls, rigged to look like we back them. Believe me, traitors will pay for this, for spilling American blood.
Defending oneself against constant attacks is outrageous conduct?
When will Obama tell the jihadists that their outrageous conduct will no longer be tolerated?
I’ll tell you this much punk. Bibi will not nor will any other Israeli leader allow its nation and citizens to be annihilated because launching a military strike against Iran may create an economic inconvenience for westerners. Do you really expect Israel to place the petty interests of the west over the very lives of its citizens? Israel will strike Iran and save itself without any concern over angering those such as yourself who already despise them.
Support for Military Action Against Iran
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/support-military-action-against-iran_607984.html
63 Percent of U.S. Voters Support Military Action Against Iran if Diplomacy Fails
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=ewJXKcOUJlIaG&b=7717029&ct=11146845
NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll conducted by the polling organizations of Peter Hart (D) and Bill McInturff (R). Feb. 29-March 3, 2012. N=approx. 400 adults nationwide. RV = registered voters
.
“If Iran continues with its nuclear research and is close to developing a nuclear weapon, do you believe that the United States should or should not initiate military action to destroy Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons?”
.
Should Should not Unsure
% % %
2/29 – 3/3/12
52 40 8
12/7-11/11
54 38 8
8/26-30/10
52 35 13
3/11, 13-14/10
51 38 11
10/22-25/09
52 37 11
7/18-21/08 RV
41 46 13
3/2-5/07
43 47 10
7/10-12/06 48 40 12
Please cite your sources ( Americans are in favor of another military engagemnt).
The American people, as polls repeatedly show, support military action to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities. There is a disconnect between the elites in government and media and what the American people instinctively understand about Iran and other jihadists.
What’s motivating Iran’s hostilities is jihad and Jew-hatred, as 1400 years of islamic history shows. Iran is brutal to its own people and especially its Arab population. So it is laughable when fools claim that Iran or any of Israel’s other enemies are motivated by Israel’s supposed bad treatment of the “palestinians”, when in fact they are treated better by Israel than they are by fellow Arabs.
We all must not be distracted by the Israel haters who always come out of the woodwork to undermine Israel’s ability to resist another genocide.
These Israel haters simply confirm why Israel cannot trust anyone but herself.
Some of these nasty comments are from Obama firsters and from Iran firsters and must be regarded as useless noise. Their greatest fear is that Israel will win over Iran and do it with no help from Obama. When that happens Obama will be seen as the great betrayer that he is and America’s allies will finally realize they are all on their own.
I know your point but I keep track of the price of all the fruit -all the fascist viruses of evil.
…
Dictatorships versus Democracies.
..
All dictatorships, the will of the people is really will of their tyrants.
The Palys government doesn’t give a rusty screw about the Palys. They too (even as trained-to-be mindless disposable attack dogs) are victims under the jackboot of Islamic Fascism.
Maybe so, maybe no.
But what’s THAT got to do with the price of bananas?
The point was that the Iranians don’t give a rusty screw about the Palys
(except insofar as they, the Mullahs in Tehran, can use them for their own purposes).
America is not Israel’s parent.
Netanyahu is not Obama’s child.
Your sloppy imagery suggests that it is none other than yourself who could use a bit of discipline.
Though, when it comes to discipline, Lenny, I seriously doubt that you understand the nature of the real article.
Perhaps your own parents beat the gray matter out of your head
— & replaced it with what they had already beaten out of your OWN tukhas?
Or, alternatively, maybe they beat out the contents of your head FIRST, and then repositioned THEM in your tukhas
— kind of like a suppository?
(Under the circumstances a fellow can’t help but wonder. . . .)
Sure they can, just look at a list of popular American TV shows.
The Palestinians are under the yoke of a murderous dictatorship in Gaza led by Hamas. They are not free , so nobody knows what they would really think land feel until they are free from their Islamic oppressors.
We all know how much worse Obama is trying to make it – he’s trying to murder Israel and all Israelis. It’s obvious.
And you are obviously a propagandist hoping to help him.
What ‘conduct’? The conduct of trying to say alive in a sea of murderous Jihadist mass murderers and their propagandists like yourself?
..
Get a brain before you make a comment – either that or go blow yourself up and find your virgins.
You people come in two categories – the brainwashed sockpuppets or the dedicated Jihadists. Either way you are culpable in conspiracy for genocide.
When and Iranian nuke blows up in a Chicago parking lot – remember to thank your friend Obama.
“I know what America is. America is something that can be easily moved.” – Bibi Netanyahu
Not, this time, bub. When an over-indulged child is finally told no by a parent that has had enough that child often lashes out in a petty, pouty way – not wanting the discipline that is now imposed and hoping to undo it as quickly as possible … only through sustained discipline does that child get molded to conform to a new, better type of behavior … the Israeli regime, the Likkudniks and their agents and sympathizers here are that crying little child in shocked disbelief that their outrageous conduct will no longer be tolerated. Spare the rod and spoil the Bibi. Obama has given Bibi a spanking and the red marks on his tuchas are there to remind him that next time it will be worse.
That’s the “root” of the Iranian problem?
You can’t possibly BELIEVE that, bubba.
Nobody is that dense.
The headline says it all.– phoney talks and listen to the MSN even all he Canadian MSN have bought the baloney lock stock and stinking oil barrel.
Think about that! Who are the owners of the MSN? It certainly isn’t the people of Canada and America, – it’s the people who tell Canadians and Americans what to think.
It’s not just Obama , – it’s the economic elite behind Obama – they are the problem.
The American ‘people’ think whatever the American Elite through the MSN want them to think. Israel is under Jihadist attack and threat of annihilation for decades. The American elite for economic reasons (oil) propagandize the American public that the Jihad s Israel’s fault. You have bought the propaganda lock stock and stinking oil barrel .
It would be funny, but what will be really funny is when you dummies find out you are the next to go.
I just wish I could see your faces when the Islamic choppers fall on your necks, if there’s time that is. IT would be some small satisfaction on your Islamopocalysic day.
The American people are sick of War. If Israel thinks it can’t live with a nuclear Iran – it should get to the root of the problem and stop persecuting the Palestinians. That’s what drives Iranian hostility. Quit asking your big brother to excuse your rotten behavior.
Agreed. Any one who thinks Iran will voluntarily relinquish its drive to get a nuclear bomb is naive, deluded or a fool.
What these talks are serving is to push war much closer.
I have no patience for fools and stupidity. Obama is cursed with both. Come on you left wingers, get your head into the game.