Bolton:”no grand bargain” with Iran
The weak point in Condi’s diplo-dance is “buckling” by allies– most probably buckling, hemming, and hawing by France, Germany, Russia, or China. That said, Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, is (so far) hanging tough.
Merkel said (quoted by Reuters in The China Post):
This is an offer to kick off negotiations but there must first be a suspension of (enrichment) activities implemented by Iran,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters before a meeting with Solana.
“It is a broad and comprehensive offer. I believe it is a huge chance and I hope that we’ll do a bit of negotiating.”
The US knows Iran will try to peel off an international negotiator or two (or three). The Financial Times quotes US ambassador to the UN John Bolton as saying “Washington has no intention of striking a comprehensive “grand bargain” with Tehran…”
That means when we say suspension we mean suspension.
Key excerpt:
Referring to a report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog that Iran has stepped up uranium enrichment – a process that can create both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material – Mr Bolton said: “They’ve got both feet on the accelerator, which is why we have a sense of urgency that these diplomatic efforts can’t continue indefinitely…Each day that goes by gives Iran more time to continue to perfect its efforts for mass production.”
More background on the negotiation game. And Newsweek picks up on a handy title.
StrategyPage thinks the entire diplomatic dance will produce little. Arnaud de Borchgrave has a different take.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Another dicey political gambit (this time intra-Palestinian).
Actually, it’s we who need to “peel off” a player or two. We’ll need to hold our nose and make a grand bargain with either Moscow or Bejing. That done, we can safely put Iran & Co all to beddy-by for their 12 Imman.
Comment by ps — 6/10/2006 @ 7:59 am
Suspension means inspectors. More commonly refered to as spies. ED NOTE: That’s what it means.
Comment by M. Simon — 6/10/2006 @ 8:05 am
I believe that, while the rhetoric following an attack would be filled with fire and brimstone, the net, net result of an attack on Iran will vary little over the long run whether we attack now or allow them to acquire nuclear weapons and suffer a nuclear confrontation with Iran. The following is my discussion on the topic on my blog. W. Keller http://conservativeoutlook-2.blogspot.com/2006/06/what-would-be-reprisal-to-military.html
Comment by W. Keller — 6/10/2006 @ 8:27 am
Why does no one mention that if the US hadn’t liberated Iraq, there would be two nuclear threats in the Middle East - Iran AND Saddam’s Iraq? Actually, make that three, because Qaddafi would not have given up his program without the salutary example of Iraq.
Comment by Robert Speirs — 6/10/2006 @ 8:54 am
How about taking advantage of the riots in Iran? Some SF folks with funds and expertise should help. The border flows two ways.
Comment by Mike H. — 6/10/2006 @ 10:35 am
Bush uses too many incentives and not enough decentives.
Comment by Ymarsakar — 6/10/2006 @ 10:40 am
Doesn’t our government have better things to do than continue this fig leaf of negotiations? The mullahs want nukes and will do/say anything to keep moving forward without interference. I see no purpose in continuing discussions with them, only continuing discussions with our allies as to what the new world order looks like when Iran has the bomb. Missing from discussions I’ve seen about Iran+Nukes: 1. Will Iran actually fire off a nuke to test it? 2. Do we believe they have the computer horsepower and software to “test” through simulation (and hence NOT have to fire one off…like Israel’s current status)? 3. Will they committ to the numerous nuclear treaties extent today? If not, what is our (and the world’s) response? 4. What is the correct defensive posture for the U.S.? I.e. what triggers a response against Iran…nukes on Israel…overt threats of nukes on Europe…overt threats of nukes on the U.S.? 5. Further to #2+#4 above, what if they fire and it’s a dud? How do we react? 6. Is it time to abandon the U.S.’s useless anti-missle program under development, and instead put defensive platforms in space? From that vantage point it’s reletively easy to spot and destroy a missle in the boost phase. Or will we let China get there first? 7. Would the U.S. take a stance that all Iranian merchant ships need to be thoroughly inspected before coming w/in 500 miles of the United States to avoid that delivery system? 8. Finally, can we definitively identify the isotopes Iran is manufacturing, like we can other countries (except N. Korea?) so when they provide terror groups the bomb we can trace its origin and react appropriately. I’d appreciate some authoritative information or links if anyone is up to it.
Comment by LarryO — 6/10/2006 @ 12:48 pm
Austin, A little humor on a serious subject. My point is that without verification there is no deal for America. With verification there is no deal for Iran. In other words no deal is possible. ED NOTE: You see it as a joke– and maybe it is. The EU-3 hope Iran decides “incentives” will lead to suspension (which requires verification). Stay tuned.
Comment by M. Simon — 6/10/2006 @ 3:25 pm
re: “peeling off” Good News for the Euro-Prostitutes who lost their best-paying customer Oil for Food Saddam. Now Iran can pay them. I hope they realize that even though they are on Iran’s payroll, Iran is still going to Kill them. Bush should Iran out. The Left in this country hates Bush more than they love our country. It reminds me of what Golda Meir said, “There will be no peace in the Middle East until palestinian women love their children more than they hate Israel.” Our nation is at risk.
Comment by JoeS — 6/10/2006 @ 5:29 pm
Commenter “ps”, comment #1, has it exactly right. The only way to outflank Tehran is through Beijing and Moscow. It is often heard, especially from the Left, that we should “learn to see how others see us”. Fine. Let’s start with Russia. What they likely see is a US government which is completely disingenuous about fighting militant Islamists, and seems quite comfortable using jihadis as a proxy against Russia (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kosovo, etc). And so they respond, tit for tat (Iran, Hamas, etc). I don’t think Russia has this quite right, but it isn’t hard so hard to see why they think it. The “grand bargain” with Russia has to address this once and for all. Realpolitik is smelly. A “grand bargain” with Putin’s Russia won’t be morally spotless, but deals of necessity seldom are. (See, e.g., Stalin). There is likely at least one person on whom this analysis is not lost - Condi Rice - a Kremlinologist of the old school…
Comment by lewy14 — 6/10/2006 @ 5:31 pm
ooops Bush should take Iran out.
Comment by JoeS — 6/10/2006 @ 5:32 pm
Well. It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By this definition, the negotiation partisans are insane, and expect the rest of us to be as well. It is further said that second marriages represent the triumph of Hope over Experience. I think the same can be said of this continuous diplomacy–that is what we are seeing right now, and have been seeing, and will continue to see until we are bested by these mullahs. Really, is there no point at which Hope will learn the lesson Experience teaches? To continue in the line of aphorism, let’s say that Hope is the tribute Experience pays to Defeat. I wish I could be optimistic, really I do. But I’m not.
Comment by betsybounds — 6/10/2006 @ 6:00 pm
I don’t take this public diplomacy seriously. If Bush is like me, he’s perfectly happy to let someone else play this game while he pursues something less iffy, like preparing for a series of air strikes, and special operations inside the country. I don’t think we can send troops in right now, but Ahmadinejad is too unstable to let live for too long. It’s too bad we can put Iran and Saudi Arabia in a box and let them kill each other.
Comment by AST — 6/10/2006 @ 6:04 pm
I read comments such as the one from JoeS (”…just take Iran out…”) and I wonder if they mean what is written. Certainly, we can take Iran out — but it would of course necessitate the use of hundreds of nuclear weapons against a country that, with the exception of the Islamo-wackos, regard the U.S. rather charitably. For those not in the know, the Iranians have protected their valuable military and nuclear assets by moving them underground, where we cannot touch them, despite some poorly-informed commentators who state that we merely have to use “bunker-buster” bombs (below 10m of rock, they are worthless). Of course, we really should have reduced Tehran to dust in 1979, but ole Jimmy did have the gonads to do it. Most of the terrrism in the world would have been stopped dead if Jimmy Carter was anything but a worthless scumbag. Unfortunately, he lives on.
Comment by Henry Bowman — 6/10/2006 @ 9:37 pm
Your comment about Condi Rice brought a smile to my face. She really has the experience, training and background to deal with this. She is in the right place at the right time. Wish her well. I think that we have the first team dealing with this problem. Can you think of anyone better. Any Clintonistas for instance. There were 3 rogue contries in that area trying for nukes. And now there is only one. Look back and see what we have accomplished. All that and a free-er Lebanon and a badly damaged Al Qaeda.
Comment by Rob — 6/10/2006 @ 9:45 pm
1: We have a (brief) window of time to play the diplomatic dance while we get the EU so angry with Iran’s Taqiyyah (strategic deception/misdirection) that we may get the EU on our side. Note how we let the EU take point on all frustrating negotiations. (Plus we get to rebuild our iraq-depleted supply of cruise missiles, bombs, and maybe previously unseen aircraft.) 2: We have a way to get the Chinese (and maybe Russians) on board … just be rotten bastards. All we have to do is announce that if we resort toforce to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem, the US will turn over all peacekeeping/country-rebuilding to the Chinese PLA … indefinitely … and in return, the Chinese get to keep ALL iranian oil production for as long as they keep significant troop strength on the ground in Iran (forever). Predictable result is upon sucn an announcement, the population of Iran, who certainly don’t want to live as tibetians do now will forthwith topple their theocrat govt to avoid perpetual Chinese domination. (Conversely, maybe we can defuse the persistent Chinese distrust of the USA by handing them the opportunity for a truly secure oil supply … and hand them such an entanglement that a major part of their army will be tied up far from home/Taiwan. As a three-fer, we ALSO getto demonstrate (to our biased media) the difference between the gentleness of US troops trying to avoid civilian casualties and the “gentleness” of the post-Tianamin PLA.)
Comment by Sarnac — 6/10/2006 @ 11:28 pm
Strife Among The Best And Brightest?… Here’s something from a Financial Times article today about the negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program:Speaking to the Financial Times, John Bolton made clear many of his reservations about the current outreach to Iran, which Condoleezza Ric…
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I’m am sure Keith Laumer is smiling from whatever hereafter he is in. Someone let Retief into the UN! Now it would be nice if Russia and China would actually take some responsibilities for their activities, but they have both proven to be incapable of doing so. China, in particular, could do nearly anything it wants to with North Korea, but it doesn’t. It really would be to their better interests to have a bit of regime change there and stand-down from nuclear grandstanding by that neighbor it supports heavily so as to ensure that South Korea does not feel the need to go nuclear. And Japan, come to think of it… and, well, if those two see it as necessary, I am sure Taiwan will join the nuclear kitty with a few chips. As for Russia… it is *still* looking for a warm water port. Even if it has to support a loathsome regime and at least give it the realistic look of going nuclear. So, anyone wanting to strong-arm Iran via these two Nations must first show why: 1) China wants a stable regime there, while it can get a ready oil supply from the current one, and, 2) the sudden appearance of the warm water port that has gone unnoticed by the everyone for Russia. And no, ‘appealing to their better side’ isn’t an answer, just a runaround. Since I am at the breakfast table, I will do the quickie bit on the questions LarryO put up. Links if I can remember them, but probably not. 1) Iran test firing a nuke - Plenty of ocean out there. I have speculated on a way that Iran could not only test fire a nuclear device, but get a two-fer and rid itself of a demographic problem plus be seen as a regime that has just suffered a nuclear attack from the outside. 2) Computer simulation - Done by Pakistan for A.Q. Khan. 3) Will Iran commit to treaties? From a Nation that funds a Transnational Terrorist group to do its bidding and ‘keep its hands more or less clean’ to the repudiation of the conduct amongst Nations by giving out Casus Belli to many Nations, not just the US, I doubt that the regime in Iran feels any compunction to adhere to treaties. 4) US Posture against Iran - NetWar, read my link above. Actually invading to take over Iran would be secondary to destabilization of the regime and having multiple regulary Army and police units rebelling against it. Note, these are not the Revolutionary Guard, Special Guard, and hired thugs from Chechenya and other places, but the more demographically in-tune regular Army and police. And, yes, ethnic uprisings giving rise to provinces seeking outside protection does fit this bill and should be seen by all those wanting ‘justice for all varieties of people’ as a just cause. Not that any of them will back up their words by actually supporting same. 5) They will only report success, or, blame the west for killing off such a fine collection of young people ‘they were just starting to talk with, and weren’t we lucky that no one of importance got incinerated?’ 6) We need a US Aerospace force and cheap access to space. Let the military do purpose-built, but put out rewards, incentives and the promise of large contracts for private industry to meet this need. Compare the last 30 years of NASA and rocketry development with *any* 30 years of commercial aviation development and contrast the level of advances. They are very similar and physics and materials play a role in both. The aviation industry did much on its own and a lot with incentives and contracts and guaranteed usefulness of capability. NASA has done *zip* since 1976 for new space access development. Cheap space access means unlimited electrical power for those willing to take it. China is investing heavily in cheap earth-to-orbit vehicle design. I think industrial competition for the US would far outpace what any mere government can put out for vehicle design, and make it safe and cheap to operate. 7) I would propose that for *all* merchant and large size pleasure craft coming in from the open seas. But a rigorous system requires a distributed warehouse and ship tracking network that would also need hard and fast backing from the US. Transnational Terrorist networks do not respect Nations and I do not see Iran using an Iranian flagged vessel or even one it can be associated with for WMD delivery to the US. As it is the US ports are *just* as safe as they were on 9/10.
Isotope analysis and similarity of design. Two rough problems, for while final source analysis can be done, it will require sampling and analysis and cross-checking with known uranium ore sites. If Iran uses a combination of sources it will muddy the waters of its isotope concentrations. Further, it can use three methods to defeat this: sub-surface oceanic testing, sub-surface ground testing and surface use against its own population. For what Nation would actually target its own people for destruction? And if they use an AQ Khan design, they can very well claim it was of Pakistani origin and play that for all it is worth on the world media stage. As it is I will stick by my idea of expecting the unexpected from US Forces using NetWar. We just don’t fight by the ‘old school’ anymore… and have even altered how operations are looked at, stood-up and run since OIF began. Large parts of Iran are now openly hostile to the regime and fomenting unrest and the regime is still just ‘one-deep’ in die hard fanatics. Their house of cards is trembling, and they think it can support a new, unopened deck on the top. They *also* know their demographic problem, and they are not fools in that regime, for all the fact they are self-serving fanatics. The obvious answer to a regime built on an unstable base is to neutralize or eliminate the base.
Comment by ajacksonian — 6/11/2006 @ 6:27 am
Will They Still Kill Each Other For This?… The Jews and Palestinians have killed each other over land for thousands of years. I was wondering. The Palestinians have controlled the land for more than 1200 years. Would the Jews mind allowing them to have the land for 60 years if that means peace?…
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