When Hardliners Collide

By Cernig

Most people - especially experts on such matters like General Mullen and Bob Gates  - think that an attack on Iran would be a disaster for both Iran and the West. Yet the hardliners on both sides seem almost determined to see war at any cost, having drunk way too much of their own kool-aid.

A letter by Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki to the European Union's senior negotiator in response to the P5+1 group's latest offer has been leaked to the French press, and Reuters reports that diplomats are describing it as "pretty much at the bottom of our expectations".

The classified reply ignored the demand by the sextet -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- that Iran suspend enrichment to obtain the benefits but made clear this was not up for negotiation.

"We have no intention of changing this path," said the three-page, English-language version of letter ...

... "The time for negotiating from the condescending position of inequality has come to an end," Mottaki wrote, citing "our lack of trust (due to) the duplicitous behavior of certain big powers" rooted in a post-World War Two colonial mindset.

"The world has changed ... The people of Iran have worked out plans for the advancement of their country without asking for help from others," the letter said.

He also ignored the powers' proposal to ease the deadlock over preconditions for negotiations under which Iran would freeze expansion of enrichment for six weeks while steps to more sanctions would be frozen in order to launch "pre-negotiations."

But Iran has not warmed to the idea since the powers still insist on a full suspension for the full range of benefits.

Mottaki reiterated Iran's stance that pressure to shelve its program was "illegal" as U.N. inspectors had found no proof of enrichment being diverted to bomb making.

But his letter pointed to "several similarities" between an Iranian proposal in May for comprehensive dialogue -- which also sidestepped the suspension issue -- and the powers' incentives offer, and said broad negotiations could start on this basis.

Mottaki did not address any of the sweeteners in the revised incentives packet.

Some diplomats are still hopeful that a preliminary "freeze-on-freeze" can be negotiated when Mottaki and EU senior diplomat Solana sit down in Geneva on Saturday, but from what Reuters is reporting I don't think that will happen. Iran is digging in on its right to enrich - a right it has under the NPT treaty just like every other signatory - and is unlikely to be budged. The tone of Iran's letter seems singularly unhelpful, indicative of an entrenched position based on domestic rhetoric about colonial powers. Even if you think something like that is true, even if it is true, you don't say so in such a diplomatic missive under the normal rules of the game.

Meanwhile, over at the Wall Street Journal, the most-failed diplomat in recent U.S. history is likewise expounding his hardline faction's own view. John Bolton presents a false choice - either attack or accept a nuclear Iran, and then continues:

instead of debating how much longer to continue five years of failed diplomacy, we should be intensively considering what cooperation the U.S. will extend to Israel before, during and after a strike on Iran. We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible. At a minimum, we should place no obstacles in Israel's path, and facilitate its efforts where we can.

Bolton may no longer be a member of Bush's administration but he speaks for many who are: the Cheney faction in the White House. Perhaps even more importantly, he speaks for all of John McCain's most influential foreign policy advisors and for McCain too. "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" was no accident.

Yet the IAEA has guaranteed that no Iranian nuclear material can be diverted to a weapons program without their knowledge, and thus that of the West, while the Agency has also singularly failed to find any evidence at all of any such program currently in existence. More, there's an answer to Bolton's false choice - internationalising Iran's enrichment facilities enabling 24/7 Western involvement in, and thus monitoring, of their nuclear efforts.  Both the West and Iran could have their cake and eat it too. That answer has been proposed more than once by both the Iranians and U.S. non-proliferation experts, but the Cheneyite faction at the White House has made sure it is not "on the table". The last set of Iranian proposals in May, referenced by Mottaki's letter, made mention of the possibility yet again. If the hardliners of both sides would just stop being so hard-headed (yeah, I know that's a vain hope) we could have a mutually acceptable and beneficial solution to the problem.