Giving Peace a Chance (Again)

“There are those who say so fully and there are those who whisper and there are those who say so privately. But everyone understands that Iran cannot be allowed to retain the ability to be within reach of nuclear weapons.  This was the focus of the long and detailed talks that I held with John Kerry.”
“I have been asked if I am concerned about standing alone in an isolated position against the world. First of all, the answer is no. This is vital and important for the security of Israel and, in my view, the peace of the world. Then certainly we are willing to stand alone in the face of world opinion or changing fashion. But in fact we are not alone because most, if not all, leaders, those with whom I have spoken, agree with us.” 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"The window for negotiation is not open-ended, and if progress isn't made, there may be a time when more sanctions are, in fact, necessary."
United States national security council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden

With the exception of Syria and possibly even Iraq and Lebanon, most of the countries that lie in the Middle East are decidedly nervous about the prospect, imminent enough, of the Islamic Republic of Iran achieving its nuclear goal and surreptitiously at first, stock-piling nuclear warheads, while it proceeds in its other mission, to perfect longer-range delivery methods through intercontinental ballistic missiles or submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Worrying for Israel, but not particularly for the West, is the prospect of Iran's threats against the continued existence of the State of Israel, and the rather unsubtle remark by Brig.Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Iran's air force commander, that the distance between Iran and Israel remains the maximum imagined range Tehran anticipates its missiles should reach. This is not an implied threat, it is quite implicit. And as such, a matter of concern to Israel. For the United States, not so much.

A surface-to-surface missile is launched during the Iranian Revolutionary Guards maneuver in an undisclosed location in Iran, Tuesday, July 3, 2012 (photo credit: AP Photo/ISNA, Alireza Sot Akbar)

 

In fact, the remark was made as an acerbic response to a US intelligence report that claimed Tehran is no longer on track to achieve an intercontinental missile by 2015. While it suits the American agenda to push the potential achievement of Iran's ability to hit beyond the Middle East with one of its nuclear-armed warheads, its neighbours like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Gulf States, Jordan -- but not, apparently, Turkey -- are decidedly nervous about the prospect of such devices in the hands of the theocratic dictatorial fanatics that rule Iran.

The American Congress is far less complacent about the situation than is the Obama administration and the U.S. State Department. Both of which latter two have requested that Congress have patience, and hold off on insisting that new, cutting sanctions be imposed. They would prefer that negotiations be given some flexibility in the talks now ongoing between the G5+1 (Security Council plus Germany) in feeling out opportunities to reach an acceptable agreement with nuclear-aspiring Iran.

Priding themselves on the certainty that the tough sanctions they had imposed had the effect of bringing Iran to the bargaining table to begin with, the White House and the State Department are now prepared to give any new sanctions a waiting period to determine what will develop during the talks aimed at making headway out of the quagmire of feints and threats. State Department spokeswoman Jen Paski claims a pause "would be helpful in terms of providing some flexibility while we see if these negotiations will move forward".

Ever hopeful. Even where there appears to be little justification for hope that Iran will set aside the most troublesome aspects of its nuclear program that go well beyond preparations for domestic energy use and the production of medical isotopes. Neither of which require uranium enriched to 20%. But those busy centrifuges are spinning to turn out 20% enrichment in a frenzied race that only Iran knows the full extent of.

Furthermore, Iran's chief negotiator has made it abundantly clear that his country is not prepared and will never be prepared to surrender its sovereign right to produce nuclear 'energy'. Nor is it, nor would it be prepared, ever, to give up its enriched uranium to another country, which would represent yet another insufferable blow against its sovereign rights.

The negotiations, said Caitlin Hayden, national security council spokeswoman, are not geared to last indefinitely in the face of possible further stalling by Iran. Newer sanctions can wait, she cautions -- and they can be imposed at any juncture when and if it becomes obvious that this is yet another of Iran's many stalling protocols to achieve its end, of more time to produce the results it plans for.

Congressional bipartisan pressure for imposing ever more sanctions on Iran hasn't been dampened. The wan self-congratulatory messages emanating from G5+1 delegates post-initial negotiations when it has been clear there has been no movement, and Iran remains as hostile to recommendations and intransigent as ever, hoping its low-key but firm response will continue to spark hope that they will eventually come around, has fooled no one in Congress.

And that situation seems clear enough to the chief U.S. negotiator, Wendy Sherman, informing Congress that the administration would support tougher sanctions on Iran if "concrete, substantive actions" and a plan that could be verified, to scale back its nuclear program satisfactorily, did not result from patient prodding. Subscribing to Winston Churchill's famous dictum that jaw-jawing is better than war-warring is fine on those occasions when two sides come together, both determined to be reasonable. Otherwise, it's simply another time-waster.

Somehow, those living closest to the threat of bullying intimidation and threatened annihilation feel far less assured than the authorities making all the key decisions, representing the interests of the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany.