{"id":18049,"date":"2013-02-04T11:01:13","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T19:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=18049"},"modified":"2013-02-04T11:01:13","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T19:01:13","slug":"iran-war-weekly-february-3-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/04\/iran-war-weekly-february-3-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran War Weekly &#8211; February 3, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Per Frank Brodhead&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/warisacrime.org\/blog\/46383\">Iran War Weekly<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><using the annual Munich Security Conference as a platform, it appears that the United States, the EU, and Iran have agreed to meet in Kazakhstan during the week of February 25th to renew negotiations about Iran\u2019s nuclear program.  The actual meeting may not be a done deal, however, as Iran has stressed the need for a realistic agenda for the next meeting, one that would at least end some of the economic sanctions and indicate a willingness to accept Iran\u2019s right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium as part of a civilian nuclear program.  Despite this caveat, the announcement of negotiations is a welcome breakthrough, as diplomacy has been snoozing since last June, and Iran\u2019s presidential election in June probably means that further negotiations will not be possible beyond March.\n \nThe renewed negotiations appear (underline, appear) to have been jumpstarted by Vice President Biden\u2019s announcement at Munich that the United States was willing to meet with Iran if serious negotiations were possible.  Iran has long insisted that direct negotiations with the United States was the key to resolving the many disputes between the two countries, of which Iran\u2019s nuclear program is only one.  Whether Biden\u2019s statement represents a post-election readiness of the Obama administration to negotiate seriously with Iran remains to be seen.\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Just as it was impossible for the Obama administration to make any diplomatic moves toward Iran prior to the November election, it will be very unlikely that Iran\u2019s domestic politics will allow much flexibility on its nuclear positions before their June election.  In the good\/useful reading below I\u2019ve linked several articles that reflect the fierce political struggles among what used to be considered Iran\u2019s \u201cconservatives,\u201d who, now that there are no longer \u201creformers\u201d or \u201cliberals\u201d on the scene, have established the main fracture in the Iranian political elite between \u201ctraditionalists\u201d and \u201cpopulists\u201d (e.g. Ahmadinejad).  It is hard to say whether the growing dominance of the \u201ctraditionalists\u201d will make a nuclear agreement with the P5+1 more likely.<\/p>\n<p>While diplomatic doors are cautiously opening, Israel\u2019s attack on Syria last week cracks open the door to war with Iran.  As noted below, Iran\u2019s recent statement that it would consider an attack on Syria to be an attack on itself was quickly followed by Israel\u2019s attack on what it claimed to be Syrian weapons bound for Hezbollah.  Whether through accident or design, Israeli military action against Syria that draws in Iran would of course obligate the United States to also attack Iran, with calamitous results.<\/p>\n<p>Please read the rest of this issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/warisacrime.org\/content\/iran-war-weely-february-3-2013\">Iran War Weekly at WarIsaCrime.org<\/a>. <\/using><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Per Frank Brodhead&#8217;s Iran War Weekly:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-18049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iran"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18049"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18054,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18049\/revisions\/18054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18049"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}