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).
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).
posted by Amir @ Friday, June 02, 2006
10 Comments:
From the logical point of view the US offer does not make sense. The aim of the negotiations is to force Iran to suspend her programs. It is clear that satisfying the goal should not be a part of the initail conditions.
I think that Iran is able to negotiate as long as she does not suspend her activities. Should the activities be suspended for one single moment, Iran would not be in position to start agian without confronting larger conflicts and problems.
Anar jan: thanks. Although I've been labeled as a payee of the Iranian government on several occasions!, I don't have any of their contact information!!.
Ghasem jan: You are right: resuming the enrichment after a short period of suspension will be followed by another round of accusations and threats against Iran. However, it will not be as harsh as that when the Iranians ended their first suspension. The first one is always the hardest.
Secondly, once the Iranians resume their activities after a month, they will have a new story to say: we talked to the Americans and they did not have a verifiable proof that our nuclear program is aimed at weaponization.
All of what I said was based on an assumption that the US accepts to play the game. If they don't, it shows that they are not serious about negotiations (and this is in contradiction with the face they've been trying to show themselves as).
Thanks Amir,
Definitely I would have been agreed with you if in the past some of the beloved politicians had not aruged by
"مسائلي هستند که از آنان آگاهي داريم. و به علاوه مسائلي وجود دارند که مي‌دانيم آن‌ها را نمي‌شناسيم. به عبارت ديگر، مسائلي هست که در حال حاضر مي‌دانيم که بر آنان احاطه نداريم. ولي به همچنين مسائل ناشناخته‌اي وجود دارند که ما نمي‌شناسيم. مسائلي وجود دارند که ما نمي‌دانيم که آنان را نمي‌شناسيم. به طور خلاصه، عدم وجود دليل، دليل بر عدم وجود نيست ... نداشتن دليل بر وجود چيزي به معناي آن نيست که براي عدم وجود آن دليلي در دست است."
Sorry that I niether translate it nor provide a link to the English version
Here is the English :
Donald Rumsfeld:
The absence of evidence is not necessarily the evidence of absence.
Right!. "The absence of evidence is not necessarily the evidence of absence.". But it is not the evidence of existence either.
The sentence was designed for the gullible public to justify what the US did in Iraq.
But when it comes to Iran, US officials (for example John Bolton) systematically and categorically call the Iranian nuclear program a nuclear weapon program. This has to be justified; it can not be justified with the above mentioned sentence.
My suggestion challenges their conclusive conclusion.
ba salam va ehteran
man ham yek irani hastam ke hodude do mah pish yek blog darbareye mas"aleye hasteiye iran dorost kardam
dashtam tuye google esme bloge khodam ro search mikardam ke be bloge shoma bar khordam
jaleb inke esme blog hamun dorost mesle hame
man yek ruzname negaram ke toye roznameye javan kar mikonam
khoshhal misham age ba man tamas dashte bashi
fekr mikonam betunim tabadole ettelalate khubi dashte bashim
aghe khasti bloge mano bebini
adresesh ine:www.irannuk.blogspot.com
webloge farsi:
www.alighannadi.parsiblog.com
Hi Amir,
Iran has been hiding its program (whatever it is, peaceful or not) from the IAEA for nearly 18 years. What does it mean?
Next, a nation who cannot make or buy reliable plane parts, DOES NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to have nuclear technology. A kid who cannot hold a pen in their hand should not be given a gun.
Moreover, a government which does not respect its signature on treaties and other international documents cannot be trusted, can it? The human rights documents and the like make up only one example of such violations.
Yet, I don't think that the U.S is right to police the world. To me, it's a choice between bad and worse. Bad is the U.S. taking up the matter on its own and worse is the country of Peykan and Pride having unregulated access to radioactive material and technology.
Yours,
Mohammad
I like what you said about what you would do if you were iran: suspend for 30 days. That is, after all, EXACTLY what the IAEA and Security Council asked of Iran from the beginning (a short term suspension for the purpose of "building confidence in the international community"). To be honest I'm surprised that the U.S. has successfully been able to make Suspension the issue, as the IAEA and UN Security Council from the beginning have only viewed suspension as a side piece to the bigger issue of allowing full IAEA inspections for the purpose of making sure that Iran's nuclear program is strictly peaceful. (lets also remember that Iran offered the IAEA full uninhibited access to their key sites last month, and Condi Rice flatly refused the offer).
All of the IAEA reports have also stated that there is "no evidence" of any nuclear material being diverted towards anything resembling a weapons program. I believe that is why the U.S. is trying to make Suspension the issue: they don't have a case with anything else.
Mohammad,
I just wanted to point out that, while you are right about Human Rights treaties, the U.S. is (as you pointed out) the LAST country that has any right whatsoever to be policing the world. I don't think I even need to mention the U.S.'s human rights record at the moment, what with extraordinary rendition, internment at Guantanamo, torture at Abu Ghraib, etc. The U.S. has done so many things so wrong in recent years that I believe they have lost the priveledge of taking part in the international community. To borrow the words of the IAEA, they need to take drastic measures "for the purpose of confidence to be built in the international community" before they should be allowed to go sticking their nose in other issues.
The U.S. has also tried to say (in their State Sponsors of Terror report on Iran that I've covered on my blog) that Iran is not living up to their international obligations, and their ambassador to the UN has stated that their non-suspension is that example of not living up to international obligations, treaties, etc. Uranium Enrichment (capitalised because it has somehow become the Main Issue) for the purpose of providing Nuclear Power is actually a right enshrined in the NNPT (nuclear non proliferation treaty), and that fact was actually the first sentence of the March UN Security Council Presidential Statement that kicked off the past few months of intense diplomacy/harassment regarding the issue.
As far as their Nuclear program is concerned, Iran is actually living up to their international obligations, and the U.S. is in NO position to be criticising them on any other issue either.
I have to point out to you that Condi "it's-amazing-she's-not-married" Rice hasn't really shifted her position very much; I don't think offering to negotiate is really that big of a concession or rhetorical victory. Most people who strictly follow the western media are fairly in the dark about the close ties Iran has with China and Russia, and as such are assuming that Iran and the U.S. are the only major players in this situation. However, the reason why Iran amped up their rhetoric in April was because they were invited to become full members of the SCO: the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is an intergovernmental energy and security cooperative whose members include China and Russia. China and Russia are also huge trading partners with Iran (HUGE), and some of the other countries offered full membership in the SCO in their april statement included Pakistan and India, which brings them into the fold as well (remember when the U.S. was offering Nuclear parts to India in early April? This was why. They didn't want the SCO thing to go down as it did.).
Iran is in a much stronger position than those who follow strictly the western media believe they are, and as such, don't really have to give in to threats like saying if they (Iran) don't go along "it will incur only great costs." In my (humble) opinion, the U.S. needs to take Iran up on their offer to allow the IAEA full inspection access to all desired sites, and give up their pre-condition of indefinite Uranium Enrichment suspension (as the Iranian government has been way too effective in their propaganda campaign to turn the enrichment issue into a matter of national pride, so they can't go back on it now.) and bear in mind that Iran (with close ties with Russia and China) doesn't really have to give in to indimidation. But then again, that's just my opinion.
(I'm not saying I agree with either side in this issue; to be honest, I think both sides need to be a bit more flexible and rational, but the rhetoric has gotten too heated at this stage for that I think)
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