Reaching An Understanding....

"If the West is interested in reaching such a solution, there is possibility to find a solution and to reach an understanding before November 24."
"We are committed to the talks and our negotiators are acting based on a framework ... outlined by the leader [Grand Ayatollah Khamenei]."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

"By the level of commitment all parties are showing, we feel comfortable."There is no going back ... I feel that all parties are positively willing to reach an agreement."
Omani Foreign Minister Youssef bin Alawi

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L) shake hands as Omani Foreign Minister Yussef bin Alawi (2nd R) and EU envoy Catherine Ashton watch in Muscat November 9, 2014. Zarif began talks with Kerry and Ashton in Oman on Sunday to try to advance efforts to end a standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, a witness said.  (Nicholas Kamm/REUTERS)

The long-dreaded, long-awaited, long-criticized deadline in two weeks' time with thoughts of approaching a comprehensive accord in an agreement on the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear program, saw Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Catherine Ashton, European Union envoy, meeting in Muscat, the capital of Oman on Sunday. Hopes there remain buoyant that risk of a wider war in the Middle East can be avoided.

Although Tehran repeatedly denies its intention with its nuclear program is to eventually come in possession of nuclear warheads, one can only shudder in apprehension should a fanatically fundamentalist Islamist state like Iran so obviously at low-level conflict with its Sunni neighbours come into possession of nuclear arms. Risk of a war in the Middle East will be enhanced greatly with Iran throwing its weight around, nuclear-armed.

Not to mention its less-than-oblique threats to obliterate Israel at some future time, one's imagination connecting that future time with the eventual, and not-too-long-into-the-future possession of nuclear devices, warheads with the rockets to arc them the correct distance to make good its promise. Not that Israel is alone in feeling apprehensive at the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. Israel has plenty of company among the Sunni nations of the Middle East.

Those concerns alone could account in large part for countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey funding and arming the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, hoping it will succeed in defeating the Syrian regime, as well as the Iraqi regime which, like Syria, is now in complete thrall to Iran, along with Lebanon and its non-state Hezbollah militias holding the rest of Lebanon to its aggressive spiral in claiming itself the voice of Lebanon.

On his arrival in Muscat the night before the meeting, Mr. Zarif, speaking to Iranian state television, repeated that sanctions imposed by the EU and the United States had favoured the West with "no result" even while it is more than evident that Iran has suffered economically as a result of the sanctions. And had found relief when the U.S. had agreed to release billions on an interim basis, to help restore Iran to financial stability. Bravado and face-saving are vital lifelines for Iran.

The Iranian student news agency ISNA in Tehran, quoted Supreme Leader Khamenei's top aid Ali Akbar Velayati as insisting that Iran "will not abandon our rights" over its facilities for nuclear production at Fordow, Natanz and Arak. Nor would it move over the size of its centrifuge program enriching uranium for nuclear fuel. The Islamic Republic had no intention whatever of abandoning its nuclear "rights" while remaining committed to the negotiations.

In which case why bother with the pantomime of negotiations that lead nowhere? But, quoted the official IRNA news agency: "Talks between Kerry, Zarif and Ashton ... will continue on Monday, to narrow the gaps and reach a comprehensive deal by the November 24 deadline." And an optimistic Omani Foreign Minister Youssef bin Alawi was fairly upbeat: "By the level of commitment all parties are showing, we feel comfortable There is no going back ... I feel that all parties are positively willing to reach an agreement."

A somewhat dazzlingly bewildering interpretation of the obvious; that one side demands concessions and the other side does as well; each counteracting the other. The issue of the number of uranium-enriching centrifuges Iran should be permitted in exchange for sanctions relief, along with the need for rigorous inspections at the country's nuclear sites, two issues that must be hammered out in an appearance of achieving an agreement that each side will accept, and which in fact, accomplishes little.

A final settlement between Iran and the P5+1 group, Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. along with Germany regarding its duration is another area of contention. Iran, so skilled in the past at hoodwinking the West, has created the atmosphere, finally, where Tehran's denials that it has any intention of acquiring nuclear weapons and would never dream of possessing atomic bombs, as a nation dedicated to peace, convinces no one.

On Sunday, 200 Iranian MPs signed a statement demanding that Zarif's negotiating team "vigorously defend" the country's nuclear rights, to ensure a "total lifting of sanctions". How reassuring.
"Are we going to be able to close this final gap so that (Iran) can re-enter the international community, sanctions can be slowly reduced and we have verifiable, lock-tight assurances that they can't develop a nuclear weapon? There's still a big gap. We may not be able to get there", President Obama told CBS News in an interview broadcast Sunday.

In the background white noise of the meeting is the revelation that President Obama had written to Supreme Leader Khamenei to argue that as the Islamic Republic and the West have shared regional interests, a deal between them should be paramount in benefiting both. Shared regional interests? What exactly would they be? That Iran dominate the Middle East? That it succeed in demolishing Israel? Could President Obama kindly oblige by revealing those purported shared interests?

The rest of the Middle East, let alone the world at large would certainly be interested. Ah, the shared conflict against the Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq: no couldn't be that, since Secretary of State Kerry has denied that as "there is no linkage whatsoever" with the progress of the nuclear talks. And we are left in the dark, wondering....

And then there is the U.S. administration's comeuppance in the midterm elections of the Senate with the Democrats losing heavily to the Republic party which members have made no secret of detesting the Obama administration negotiating with Iran. Should the talks go south in the weeks to come, it is just possible that the U.S. Congress may decide on fresh sanctions with which to confront Iran in the shared belief that yes, indeed, permitting Iran nuclear weapons would represent a global disaster.