Iran ready to talk about nuclear program

[Tupac Shakur]

What is clearer is that the ambiguous report inserted Iran back in the center of the political conversation 48 hours before the foreign policy debate in Florida Monday night, the last debate of the campaign.

And the Iranian situation — complex and maddening in its details — offers in broad strokes a real glimpse at the difference between the parties' foreign policy postures. For all the talk of plans, Romney does not offer a clear alternative beyond a promise to project strength; he has not promised air strikes. But foreign policy is more a matter of reaction and instinct than of planning, and Iran and the Middle East peace process have been the two most visible arenas in which Obama's belief in the power of his own leadership, and of a new White House posture toward the Muslim world, fell short.

President Obama promised an extended hand — he even said, on the campaign trail in 2008, that he would meet the leader of Iran, something that never occurred. Obama was slow to forcefully support the Iranian opposition during the 2009 "Green Revolution," and held out hope of a diplomatic breakthrough that hasn't come.

It's a notable failure in a foreign policy marked by the end of the war in Iraq, an increase in drone strikes on suspected terrorists and crowned by the killing of Osama bin Laden — things Obama is far more eager to discuss Monday night.

Iran News Will Shift Debate Focus

[Dinner]

Michael Ledeen

Michael Ledeen is an both an assclown and a felon who should have been put in jail for life for committing treason during the Iran-Contra Scandal. Now he's just a dried up old partisan hack who babbles right wing conspiracy theories who has been laughed off of any and all creditable media decades ago.

[Dinner]

Mike Ledeen: DEATH PANELS ARE REAL AND OBAMA WILL KILL YOUR GRANDMA!

http://alineofsight.com/policy/death-panels-the-reality-of-healthcare-rationing?A=WebApp&CCID=15002&Page=17&Items=1

Mike Ledeen: IRAN WAS BEHIND 9/11!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/17/399177/-Michael-Ledeen-Iran-was-behind-9-11

Mike Ledeen: OBAMA IS A SECRET TERRORIST SLEEPER AGENT WHO WANTS TO ATTACK AMERICA! (And we know he's going to make Sharia the law)

http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/tag/michael-ledeen/

The guy is a ****ing raving lunatic and you're a laughable fool for taking anything he says seriously.

[Dinner]

Oh, and Mike Ledeen is also into the whole dooms day prepper movement which has nutjob Republicans building underground bunkers stacked with cans of spam, guns, ammo, and ramen noodles because OBAMA IS GOING TO CAUSE THE COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD! About the only thing Ledeen leaves out is the white supremest dream of rising Mad Max/Lord of the Flies style from the ashes getting to kill all the black people and Mexicans. Still, he's neck deep in the prepper movement which is absolutely steeped in white nationalist race war "theory".

http://ohio.preppersnetwork.com/category/quotes

We're talking completely psycho loon territory here and the fact that you quote him and think he is creditable tells us a lot about you, Zev.

[Dinner]

More ravings from Mike Ledeen about the end of the world, how Obama is going to bring it about, and how Obama's welfare sucking zombies are going to rise up to attack honest hard working Americans (read: scary blacks and hispanics are going to try to kill all the white people). There for all real Americans need an under ground secret bunker with a two year supply of canned food and lots and lots of guns & ammo (no doubt to fight the coming race war).

http://s3.dailypaul.com/221358/who-is-michael-ledeen?page=1

http://pjmedia.com/blog/bunkers-food-armor-disaster-prep-hits-mainstream/

http://ssotest.pjmedia.com/lifestyle/tag/practical-preppers/

These people are ****ing insane.

[Tupac Shakur]

These people are ****ing insane.

You aren't coming across much better, champ.

[DinoDoc]

Why would these talks bear anymore fruit than the P5+1 even if the reports were true?

[MrFun]

More importantly, what kind fruit would this bear anyway.

Bananas?

[Tupac Shakur]

If you weren't such an ignorant racist you might know that the pomegranate is a beloved fruit in Iran/Persia.

[SlowwHand]

DAMN, Dinner. Can you not complete a thought? Or Edit? Or SOMETHING?

[MrFun]

If you weren't such an ignorant racist you might know that the pomegranate is a beloved fruit in Iran/Persia.

I never said that bananas grow in Iran.

[Aeson]

According to Ahmedinajad there are no fruits in Iran.

[Zevico]

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/10/21/negotiations-with-iran-obama%e2%80%99s-october-surprise%e2%80%99-to-help-win-election/

Are supposed negotiations with Iran the “October Surprise” intended to win the election for President Barack Obama, an Iranian trick for buying time, or both? The answer is both. It’s an incredibly transparent ploy though with the cooperation of the mass media such a gimmick might well have some effect.

Here’s the scenario we are supposed to believe: Obama’s sanctions (the tough Obama) have severely damaged Iran and so Tehran is looking for a way out. At the same time, though, Obama’s flexibility in dealing with possible enemies wins them over (the empathetic Obama). Thus, Obama’s greatness as a statesman might solve this problem of Iran’s nuclear drive short of war.

Let’s note some of the evidence that this ploy meets the needs of both sides in the conflict. For Obama, it is a potential electoral gain at the last minute in a hard fought election in which his foreign policy has come under severe questioning. For the Iranian regime the development buys even more time as it continues to go full-steam ahead with its nuclear drive.

If the Iranians are really sophisticated about American politics they understand the advantages for themselves:

–There will be pressure against new sanctions for the next six months or more since it could be said in the United States that these would damage a promising initiative.

–It might help reelect Obama who is significantly softer on Iran. If the Iranians believe that a President Mitt Romney might launch a U.S. attack or support an Israel one—I don’t believe this but probably they do—that makes helping Obama win a top priority.

–Since the talks wouldn’t be until next year, Iran has to give up nothing to make the initiative. Note, too, that during the last five years Iran has repeatedly proposed different diplomatic formulae both in terms of meetings and potential compromises only to retract them or make clear that Tehran’s terms are going to be unacceptable.

According to the Times the agreement is “a result of intense, secret exchanges between American and Iranian officials that date almost to the beginning of President Obama’s term.” In other words, nothing has happened for four years and suddenly we have a deal. Sound suspicious?

All this involves then is an Iranian offer to start talks, talks which could break down in a few hours or go on for years without result. Of course, the first Iranian demand will be for easing the sanctions.

Note, too, that the Obama Administration officially denied the report—hey, we’re not playing politics with foreign policy!—and then leaked that it was true to its friends in the media.

The new situation can also be used to paint Republican candidate Mitt Romney as a potential war-monger. In the words of the New York Times:

“It is also far from clear that Mr. Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, would go through with the negotiation should he win election. Mr. Romney has repeatedly criticized the president as showing weakness on Iran and failing to stand firmly with Israel against the Iranian nuclear threat….

“Moreover, the prospect of one-on-one negotiations could put Mr. Romney in an awkward spot, since he has opposed allowing Iran to enrich uranium to any level — a concession that experts say will probably figure in any deal on the nuclear program.”

One key issue is the difference between the U.S. and Israeli positions. The Obama Administration says that Iran can have all the fixings of a bomb as long as it doesn’t build one or that Tehran must be stopped short of having everything in place. The problem with the first option, of course, is that Iran could secretly or quickly assemble bombs (including those that might be delivered by terrorists); the second option is tougher to enforce, less likely to be negotiated, and more likely to bring military action.

As the Times rightly points out, for Romney, “The danger of opposing such a diplomatic initiative is that it could make him look as if he is willing to risk another American war in the Middle East without exhausting alternatives.”

The story continues:

“It would be unconscionable to go to war if we haven’t had such discussions,” said R. Nicholas Burns, who led negotiations with Iran as under secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration.”

So in other words, the U.S. government is under pressure to talk as long as Iran wants, even if Iran is moving ahead on its nuclear program at every moment during the long, drawn-out, and inconclusive chatting.

There is, of course, no solution. Sanctions won’t stop Iran from building nuclear weapons and long-range missiles able to deliver them onto targets. Diplomacy won’t work, except possibly for the fig leaf of having Iran own all the pieces for those weapons and simply promising not to assemble them. War is unattractive for the United States and, despite all you’ve heard, Israel, too. Does a scenario of the next U.S. president launching a major, long-term military operation against Iran seem likely–especially after the near- or non-completion of controversial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan– whether or not you’d like to see that happen?

What’s most likely is that Iran will get nuclear weapons. And that makes it more important that whoever is conducting the containment and conflict strategy better be tough and credible to Tehran. The irony is that this Iranian ploy might well result in reelecting the man least likely to do that.

[DaShi]

Zevico, there's already a thread on that topic:

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/2...pinion-Writers

.