Obama and Israel

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
The Iranians are going to negotiate with us either way if they value a removal of sanctions and international recognition over nukes

The Americans are going to negotiate with us either way if they value us not having nukes over using us as their whipping boy.

[Naked Gents Rut]

The Americans are going to negotiate with us either way if they value us not having nukes over using us as their whipping boy.

The Americans have already offered to negotiate. The question right now is whether Iran has to meet certain conditions for the negotiations to take place (Bush/Sarkozy) or whether America enters the negotations without any prior cooperative steps on the part of the Iranians (Obama).

I figure you must be ****ing with me on this, however, as you're too smart to actually think Obama's plan is the better one. Expecting the Iranians to suspend enrichment before negotiations on a long-term settlement take place has obvious benefits. If they agree to suspend, we push back the date Iran goes nuclear and give the diplomatic process the time it needs to work. If they don't agree to suspend, then we know they're not serious about negotiations and can start planning either a military strike or how to deal peacefully with a nuclear Iran. Making Iranian suspension of enrichment a precondition for negotiations provides a clarification of intent that negotiation without preconditions does not.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut


The Americans have already offered to negotiate. The question right now is whether Iran has to meet certain conditions for the negotiations to take place (Bush/Sarkozy) or whether America enters the negotations without any prior cooperative steps on the part of the Iranians (Obama).

I figure you must be ****ing with me on this, however, as you're too smart to actually think Obama's plan is the better one. Expecting the Iranians to suspend enrichment before negotiations on a long-term settlement take place has obvious benefits. If they agree to suspend, we push back the date Iran goes nuclear and give the diplomatic process the time it needs to work.

Obviously if they agree to ****ing suspend it's better. Nice to see how that's worked out so far, though.

If they don't agree to suspend, then we know they're not serious about negotiations

No, we know that they're playing the same game the West is, namely trying to strengthen their own hand before they sit down.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Nice to see how that's worked out so far, though.

There are two explanations for why they haven't agreed to suspend yet...

1. They aren't ever going to suspend and we better start planning for a nuclear Iran.

2. They think Obama is going to negotiate with them without suspension.

Hopefully Obama will reverse course right after the election and firmly state that he's on board with the P5 process. We can't get any clarification on Iran's intentions until he does so.

No, we know that they're playing the same game the West is, namely trying to strengthen their own hand before they sit down.

The only way they can strengthen their hand now is to go nuclear. This would increase their bargaining power, but it also has a very high risk of blowback. I think an enrichment program ready to restart at any moment is all the leverage the Iranians need in negotiations, should they seriously want to pursue them.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut


There are two explanations for why they haven't agreed to suspend yet...

1. They aren't ever going to suspend and we better start planning for a nuclear Iran.

2. They think Obama is going to negotiate with them without suspension.

Hopefully Obama will reverse course right after the election and firmly state that he's on board with the P5 process. We can't get any clarification on Iran's intentions until he does so.



The only way they can strengthen their hand now is to go nuclear. This would increase their bargaining power, but it also has a very high risk of blowback. I think an enrichment program ready to restart at any moment is all the leverage the Iranians need in negotiations, should they seriously want to pursue them.

No, they can strengthen their hand by NOT agreeing to preconditions, or by agreeing to preconditions in exchange for other preconditions of their own (suspension of sanctions) or by getting the West to agree to their preconditions without them having to agree to preconditions. If they agree to the West's preconditions ahead of time without gaining anything of their own then they have done two things:

1) Signalled to the West that they are in a weaker position
2) Placed all time pressure of negotiations upon themselves

Drake, think things through instead of posting nonsense. Would it be better for us if the Iranians agreed to suspend enrichment immediately? Of course. But there are very reasonable reasons for them not to want to which do not imply that they are not open to shutting down enrichment as part of a deal.

[Naked Gents Rut]

No, they can strengthen their hand by NOT agreeing to preconditions

Your hand isn't strengthened if the other side refuses to negotiate because of your failure to agree to preconditions (or demand for preconditions of your own).

1) Signalled to the West that they are in a weaker position

Iran is in the weaker position, so long as the West maintains a united front (particularly with Russia and China). That's why Sarkozy finds Obama's proposed negotiation so "problematic." All this time and effort has been spent building unity to pressure Iran to suspend enrichment in return for negotiations and now Obama risks undoing all that work by giving the Iranians negotiations for nothing.

2) Placed all time pressure of negotiations upon themselves

I don't understand this point. It's not like the Iranians bear much of an opportunity cost for delaying their nuclear program. The West isn't going to be in a much better position to militarily deal with the Iranian nuclear program in three years as opposed to one.

They would, of course, no longer have the ticking time-bomb threat of their looming nuclearization as a means to pressure the P5 in any negotiations, but that's no loss if the P5 sticks to its current policy of refusing to agree to negotiations until that threat is off the table. The only way Iran gets that leverage back now is if Obama ****s up and actually follows through on his naive campaign promise.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Blowing up the P5 strategy is especially dumb now given dropping oil prices. Iran's position is weakening by the day.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
Your hand isn't strengthened if the other side refuses to negotiate because of your failure to agree to preconditions (or demand for preconditions of your own).

Exactly, Drake.

Iran is in the weaker position, so long as the West maintains a united front (particularly with Russia and China)

This is not necessarily true, nor even if we accept its truth is it necessarily true that Iran believes it to be true. Nor even if Iran agrees with its truth need they agree that delaying negotiations hurts them more than agreeing to preconditions now.

I don't understand this point. It's not like the Iranians bear much of an opportunity cost for delaying their nuclear program.

a) Yes they do. The minute the scientists and engineers stop work Iran starts moving backward.

b) They are bearing the cost of sanctions.

They would, of course, no longer have the ticking time-bomb threat of their looming nuclearization as a means to pressure the P5 in any negotiations, but that's no loss if the P5 sticks to its current policy of refusing to agree to negotiations until that threat is off the table. The only way Iran gets that leverage back now is if Obama ****s up and actually follows through on his naive campaign promise.

They HAVE that leverage right now. We are in a negotiation as we speak. It is just an extremely slow-moving negotiation because one side refuses to listen to the other until it agrees to something. The Iranians think that they strengthen their position by waiting relative to accepting preconditions. Personally, I'm inclined to agree with their assessment.

Asking for as strong a precondition as the suspension of enrichment was a ****ing stupid idea. It overplayed the hand the West had. Iran is under no more time pressure than the West is right now, and may be under less, whereas if they agree to the preconditions set for them they will be under significantly more.

[KrazyHorse]

Iran has not agreed to preconditions in over 2 years. What makes you think they're going to start agreeing to preconditions any time soon? Whose hand has been strengthened over the last two years?

[fed1943]

I never understood why a lot of clever people are concerned with
Iran's weapons and not with Pakistan's ones.
Sep 11 came from Pakistan, not from Iran, right?
Best regards,

[GePap]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
If I were Iran, I'd also continue to enrich if I thought the next U.S. President was going to open direct negotiations with me anyway despite my failure to meet the conditions set up by the P5 + 2. Why give up something to get negotiations when Obama will give them to you for free?

Please, the Iranians haven't moved for years - their recalcitrance has nothing specificly to do with Obama. More importantly, clearly continuing with enrichment is a very high priority thing for Iran, which supersedes talks.

What I'm really interested in is what you think Obama is going to offer in direct negotiations that will achieve the stated goals of the United States. Will his mere presence be enough to dissuade an Iran that, as you said, "will continue on its path" so long as it "has strong national security incentives to work towards a bomb"? Or are we tossing aside years of multilateral cooperation on Iran so that Obama can prove he's not Bush while failing even more miserably to stop the Iranian nuclear program?

This is like North Korea all over again, only the Democrat is undoing all the work of the Republican this time around...

The cost of having Iran give up it's search for nukes will be high exactly because they have damn good reasons to get them. The effort will continue to be multilateral because the costs will have to be shared in order to buy Iran off. And yes, in the end we will have to buy Iran off, just like Clinton bought NK off, and how Bush has had to return to buying NK off.

The longer we wait and the closer the Iranians get to mastering enrichment, the higher the cost will be, so lets get on with it.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Asking for as strong a precondition as the suspension of enrichment was a ****ing stupid idea. It overplayed the hand the West had. Iran is under no more time pressure than the West is right now, and may be under less, whereas if they agree to the preconditions set for them they will be under significantly more.

Yeah. Demanding suspension as a precondition can only be done if the west has very strong leverage, which the west doesn't really have. The sanctions do hurt, but as Iran is not a fullblown democracy yet it can take the damage whilst having another case for its population to resent western interference.

If Obama takes on direct negotiation he can quickly try to find a common ground. And why not, because the current situation has been a status quo for a long time. And like Gepap said, the cost to buy them off increases more and more as Iranians improve their enrichment programme.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Let me just add that I like Jewish people just fine, and I don't see any indication that Slaughtermeyer doesn't like Jewish people either. He might I guess but just believing in conspiracy theories that involve the mossad doesn't mean you hate Jewish people.

All this needed was, "Some of my best friends are Jews!"

[Naked Gents Rut]

a) Yes they do. The minute the scientists and engineers stop work Iran starts moving backward.

Can you explain this? I don't understand why Iran would "start moving backward" if they suspended. Why can't they just pick up where they left off at a later date? Something to do with how the cascades work?

b) They are bearing the cost of sanctions.

Read the P5 + 2 statement I linked to earlier. They're offering Iran the suspension of sanctions in return for Iran's suspension of enrichment.

Asking for as strong a precondition as the suspension of enrichment was a ****ing stupid idea.

I don't see why it's such a "strong" precondition, unless suspension actually does move them backwards in some way that I'm hoping you'll explain.

They HAVE that leverage right now. We are in a negotiation as we speak. It is just an extremely slow-moving negotiation because one side refuses to listen to the other until it agrees to something. The Iranians think that they strengthen their position by waiting relative to accepting preconditions.

True. Good point.

Whose hand has been strengthened over the last two years?

Hard to say. The West's hand has definitely weakened, but not due to anything Iran did. The over-hyped and misleading NIE from last December really hurt the West's ability to get Russia and China to agree to tougher sanctions. The united front of the P5 is in doubt due to this and the fact that the U.S. is about to elect a President who claims he will abandon the current framework for negotiations.

On the other hand, Iran's position hasn't clearly strengthened. They're closer to a bomb, of course, but their economy is also in the ****ter and popular displeasure with the government over the sanctions and bellicose rhetoric on the nuclear program is rising. Falling oil prices are going to make these liabilities even more pronounced. Seems like a good time for the West to stand firm and move the Iranians toward the negotiating table.

What makes you think they're going to start agreeing to preconditions any time soon?

They're not going to agree to any preconditions as long as they think they can get out of making them, obviously. That's my point and why Obama needs to make clear he's firmly in the P5 camp as soon after the election as possible.

[Naked Gents Rut]

If Obama takes on direct negotiation he can quickly try to find a common ground.

How? People say this all the time, but they never explain what common ground Obama is going to find that hasn't already been discovered in years of negotiations.

As GePap said...

More importantly, clearly continuing with enrichment is a very high priority thing for Iran, which supersedes talks.

The Iranians want to continue uranium enrichment. The P5 wants them to stop. Just talking to them isn't going to magically change this. You need a united front putting pressure on Iran to get them to agree to suspension.

And like Gepap said, the cost to buy them off increases more and more as Iranians improve their enrichment programme.

This isn't true. Just look at North Korea. The price of buying them off now, after they've actually gone nuclear, is the same as it was during the Clinton administration. Economic assistance, normalized relations, etc.