Outfoxing the Hen

"The fear is that the Iranians are going to pretend to give up their nuclear weapons program -- and we're going to pretend to believe them."
Former American senior intelligence official

"No one wants a diplomatic solution more than I do. But it cannot be a deal for a deal's sake. And I am worried they [President Obama and his advisers] want a deal more than they want the right deal."
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez

"It pauses some aspects, while others proceed apace. A 'research' loophole allows the Iranians to continue work on advanced centrifuges. In short, Iran gets to have it both ways: to enjoy sanctions relief (the West's part of the deal) while continuing to build up its nuclear program (Iran's part of the deal)."
former U.S. National Security Council director Michael Doran

"The most important thing is that Iran does not have nuclear weapons capabilities, and that needs to be the supreme and most important goal of the present efforts in talks with Iran – to prevent Iran from the capability to manufacture nuclear arms."
"What do they need thousands of centrifuges for? For what do they need the tons of enriched uranium? Only to produce nuclear weapons. This capability needs to be denied them."
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu

 

The United States under the Obama administration has moved steadily away from military confrontation. Whether it be with Syria, Iran or Russia. Russia, in fact, through the statesmanlike diplomacy of President Vladimir Putin convinced President Barack Obama that nations such as his with its military might should be instead practising diplomacy, and through diplomatic negotiations much could be achieved.

Mr. Putin having Mr. Obama practise what Mr. Putin preached but soon demonstrating it was for others, not himself, to practise.

Was it the presentation by the Nobel Committee of the Peace Prize to Barack Obama that set him on the road to military withdrawal in favour of speaking sternly and carrying a showpiece stick? Is it the university lecturer in him that prefers to admonish rather than to punish? Is it that he feels it incumbent upon himself to live up to the title of Peace Laureate? Is it trust in human nature that people of high stature and political nature will say what they mean and mean what they say?



Is it that he is incapable of looking beyond himself as an example? Whatever it is that motivates him, possibly his imagined legacy is part and parcel of it. Former president George W. Bush, resolute in war, is known not for committing his country to the charitable expunging of HIV/AIDS in Africa, but for his penchant of barging into invasions in response to threats realized and those imagined against his country.

President Obama has no wish for himself to be known in the posterity that history promises as a war-monger.

He is unconcerned that his credibility has been seriously wounded, and he has left behind a coterie of puzzled, disappointed former allies many of whom have long been dependent on the authority and promise of a powerful country backing their common interests. Of course, with the military option eschewed there was the economic-sanction option, and it was played and it worked fairly well before succumbing to negotiations with an adversary steeped in the Middle East ability to drive a hard bargain.

Driving that hard bargain depends as well on the vulnerability of one's adversary to the belief in the honour of saying what one means and meaning what one says. Ignorant of the full meaning and extent, purpose and success of takkiya, the West undertook to reach a negotiated agreement with a foxy negotiator for whom purposeful dissimulation provides an opportunity to buy time when time is of the essence.



The mutual agreement between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War when both dreaded each other's arsenal of atomic weapons worked to ensure that neither wanted to unleash Armageddon on the world. Such an agreement with Tehran would be utterly meaningless because religion trumps ideology. And for Iran Armageddon would be just dandy, since it would reunite all believers of the one true faith with their maker.