Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced that the United States is willing to engage in talks with the Iranians given one, tough pre-condition:
“To underscore our commitment to a diplomatic solution and to enhance prospects for success, as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table with our European colleagues and meet with Iran’s representatives,” Rice said today. She said the proposal has been conveyed to Iran through the Swiss government.
“We urge Iran to make this choice for peace, to abandon its ambition for nuclear weapons,” Rice said.
Refusal to do so, she said, “will lead to international isolation and progressively stronger political and economic sanctions.”
She added: “We are agreed with our European partners on the essential elements of a package containing both benefits if Iran makes the right choice and costs if it does not. We hope that, in the coming days, the Iranian government will thoroughly consider this proposal.”
Some have characterized the insistence on a cessation of enrichment as a “poison pillâ€, a non-starter. I think it’s an indication that the administration genuinely believes that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Given Mr. Bush’s repeated insistence that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable and the conviction that they are, in fact, developing nuclear weapons, for talks to be anything but a delaying action to give Iran more time to complete their development, verifiable suspension of nuclear enrichment is pretty obviously required.
UPDATE: Nadezhda of American Footprints has an excellent post noting the contradictions in American policy with respect to Iran. Well, yes. While I’d prefer a liberal democratic regime in Iran, I’d accept a mullahocracy that wasn’t developing nuclear weapons, supporting terrorism, and de-stabilizing the region. But why not go for the gold?
She continues with an interesting analysis of Russia’s role in the negotiations. I’m afraid that we don’t have much but negative assurances to offer the Russians or Chinese: an Iran with its oil infrastructure in rubble doesn’t really have much to offer them and that’s what lies in the future unless there’s a course correction from the current Iranian regime.
See also this post from Nadezhda. There are interesting hints in some of the sources to which she links that suggest that Washington may have some kind of deal with Russia and China in hand.
ANOTHER UPDATE:Â here is the complete text of Secretary Rice’s statement.
Frankly, I can see why BushCo (under the influence of the PNAC) might be interested in Iran, at any cost. Imagine, holding sway over a territory that reaches from Syria in the west to Pakistan in the east? That seems pretty tempting. Sure, the British tried that Middle East thing too and got wupped, but you never know, maybe this time it might work out.
As for the notion there are not enough troups for such an endeavour, I would suggest a draft could be put into effect. Sure, there would be protests but I imagine these would be pushed to the wall by local and state police forces at the insistence of the feds. The “Patriot” act and all, ya know?
Even if BushCo chose to use tactical nulear weapons, that wouldn’t be much of an issue, after all the US has more experience working in hostile nuclear environments than any other country except maybe Russia. Although 20 years ago they were using hose pipes and push brooms as part of their decontamination efforts.
But…isn’t that what the talks would be about? Isn’t that like saying “perhaps we can bargain over what the sale of my car is, but first, give me 20 grand for the car.”
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me like one more tired trick….we know they won’t do that. I mean we know that. We dont’ even expect it.
I see it as a sign that we don’t want to talk to them, but need to look like we are willing.
Nezua Limón Joxectla-Smith, I’m not sure I see it completely that way. Talks would presumably have a significantly larger scope than the temporary cessation of nuclear enrichment. There are lots of points of discussion including termination of Iran’s nuclear weapons development program, their support for terrorism, human rights in Iran, and, on the positive side, development aid and the U. S. re-opening trade with Iran.
Confidence-building measures are a conventional part of diplomatic initiatives. Admittedly, this one’s a biggie but, as I noted in the body of the post, probably a necessity.
Contrariwise, let’s say, just hypothetically, that you’re absolutely convinced that the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons, their intentions can reasonably be inferred from their rhetoric, and you’d genuinely prefer to negotiate the problems away rather than overthrow the regime using military force. How do you prevent the Iranians’ exploiting the talks to play for time?
How do you prevent the Iranians’ exploiting the talks to play for time?
Since the main reason to negotiate with them in the first place is to give the impression that you’ve tried every other alternative before you attacked,
As soon as you’ve spent enough time negotiating then you call off the negotiations and attack.
You get to attack sooner because you negotiated than you would if you refused to negotiate — that’s the point of negotiating.
On the other hand, if you’re negotiating in the hope that they’ll surrender or offer sufficent concessions — a conditional surrender — then negotate until you think they won’t offer sufficient concessions and then attack.
The only reason to think they could exploit talks to play for time is the assumption that we’d let talks slow down our attack. And there isn’t much reason to assume that, is there?
I’m hoping that negotiating with Iran isn’t just a charade, J Thomas. As I’ve written in some of my Iran posts I’m not as convinced that they’re irrational as many in the blogosphere seem to be. I just think they’re looking at a different set of facts.
Dave, I don’t see that there’s any wiggle room for negotiation.
Iranians want their own power plants. They have their own uranium. They want to enrich it themselves and use it themselves. They probably want to make their own breeder reactors — far far cheaper fuel. But if they did that they’d get cheap nuclear weapons too.
We want to make sure they don’t get nuclear weapons. To do that we have to insist that their nuclear power plants are controlled by somebody else. We have to insist that they buy expensive fuel from somebody else, and return the spent fuel. Then if at some later time we arrange sanctions against iran, their power plants stop working — as soon as they can’t find somebody to sell them expensive fuel, they’re in serious trouble.
I can’t see either side backing down. And it takes one side backing down to get an agreement. Either we agree to a systm that iran could use to quickly get nukes at some time in the future, or they agree to expensive nuclear power that leaves them open to economic and diplomatic blackmail. Or they put aside nuclear power and just burn oil until it runs out.
Since there is no room for a negotiated settlement, all that negotiations do ios provide time and propaganda offenses and attempts to seduce neutrals onto one side or the other.
Our insistence that they stop refining fuel while we negotiate gives us time. They stopped before and got nothing for it, they just lost time.
The big question is about russia and china. Who do they consider the bigger threat? Are they worse off with a nuclear iran, or are they worse off with the result of another american war?
Condi Rice has played it pretty smart this time: if the Iranians accept the offer of talks, the US wins. If they don’t accept the offer, US wins also.
Do you know what I would have done if I was a policy maker in Iran? I would have accepted the offer, saying that “Iran will suspent its nuclear program for 30 days from the day the negotiations start as a good faith effort. If the United States (that has never dropped its allegations) provides us with a verifiable proof that our nuclear program is aimed at weaponization, we will make the suspension permanent.”
This way the ball (that is now in Iran’s court) rolls back to the United States’ court. And also Iran will manouver over the fact that the accusations are not founded on verifiable facts.