Clinton Exposes Negotiation Pretense

By Steve Hynd

I've been saying for some time now that the Obama administration's promise to negotiate with Iran, to find some common ground and try to defuse three decades of mutual saber-rattling, was going to be simply a pretence at diplomacy as long as Hilary "Madame AIPAC" and her coterie of neoliberal hawks had anything to do with it.

Now Clinton has sent that message loud and clear, by authorising an officially unofficial leak of her intentions.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is "doubtful" that Iran will respond to U.S. overtures of engagement when they are made, a senior State Department official said on Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Clinton had told her counterpart from the United Arab Emirates that the United States was under "no illusion" over Iran, which the West suspects of building a nuclear bomb.

"She (Clinton) said she is doubtful that Iran will respond to any kind of engagement and opening the hand out and reaching out to them," said the official, who was speaking on the sidelines of an international donors' conference for Gaza in Egypt, where Clinton held a series of bilateral meetings.

And today on ABC she tells Charlie Gibson:

"Iran's pursuit of the nuclear weapon is deeply troubling to not only the U.S. but many people throughout the world," Clinton said.

"We're at the beginning of this process of putting enormous pressure on Iran from all kinds of different angles in order to persuade them or prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons," Clinton added later.

Nevermind that neither US intelligence nor the IAEA has found any evidence of a current Iranian nuclear weapons program. That's just an inconvenient truth for the neolibs, just as it was for the neocons before them. Here, Clinton admits to a policy of strategic ambiguity, pressuring Iran into a corner by agitprop, saber-rattling and international deals designed to isolate it and put it's rulers in fear of fiery US and Israeli retribution. These negotiations will be given one chance, made to fail, and it'll be back to the hawk's game again. Unfortunately, that will only bolster Iran's hardliners, which will in turn bolster US and Israeli interventionists, and the whole thing will circle around until bombs start dropping. Iranian moderates, who have been crying out for a new detente, must be horrified at being proven correct on Clinton's undermining.

Even Brent Scowcroft doesn't share Clinton's prejudgemental negativity. He told this year's National Council on US-Arab Relations conference that "What [the U.S.] can do and can't do with Iran is...pretty much a mystery because we have not been prepared to explore with them what the possibilities are," even as he noted that Iran has been the instigator of the last three attempts at negotiations, all rejected by US hawks. To me, it looks like Scowfield, National Security Adviser to two Republican presidents, would make a better SecState than Madame AIPAC, who obviously intends scuttling the next opportunity for a US/Iran thaw.

Comments

[Peter G.]

Any diplomatic overtures are equally likely to be scuttled by the Mullahs of Iran who have quite a list of their own conditions and still rather need an external enemy to distract the Iranians from their own dismal performance. You don't send a lamb to negotiate with barking dogs. I am looking forward to seeing how this will play out. Having direct negotiations will be a welcome development in its' own right. You have to start somewhere.