The precondition for talks on "Iran's nuclear program" is its suspension

Condi Rice has played it pretty smart this time: US will join European talks with Iran only if the Iranians suspend their nuclear program. If the Iranians accept the offer of talks, the US wins. If they don't accept the offer, US wins also.

I don't think that this offer is an offer to Iran, but it is an offer to silence the voices wanting direct US-Iran talks. Some others characterize it as a "poison pill" and a nonstarter.

Do you know what I would have done if I was a policy maker in Iran? I would have accepted the offer, saying that "Iran will suspent its nuclear program for 30 days as a good faith effort from the day the negotiations start. If the United States (that has never dropped its allegations) provides us with a verifiable proof that our nuclear program is aimed at weaponization, we will make the suspension permanent."

This way the ball (that is now in Iran's court) rolls back to the United States' court. And also Iran will manoeuver over the fact that the accusations are not founded on verifiable facts.

The starter for this post was a post by Mehdi (in Persian).

The Persian Complex

The Persian Complex is a nice OP-ED and a must-read in New York Times by Abbas Amanat, an Iranian Professor in Yale University. He describes Iran's insistence on its sovereign right from a historical point of view.

He discusses how Iran was deprived of basic technologies such as railroad from the 1870's to the 1920's and what happened to the man who built the railroad. He also discusses how the oil nationalization movement of 1951 to 1953 under Mossadegh was opposed by Britain and what happened to Mossadegh.

He concludes that the United States "can for a time deny Iran nuclear technology, but ... no doubt the Islamic regime will .... advance its nuclear program...."

The end piece was by far the best peice:
"... Legend has it that the Persian king Hushang, an equivalent of Prometheus, introduced fire to the Iranians. But unlike his Greek mythological counterpart, who stole it from gods, he accidentally discovered it while fighting with a dragon."