{"id":7973,"date":"2010-09-02T10:48:14","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T18:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=7973"},"modified":"2010-09-08T18:54:03","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T02:54:03","slug":"thursday-iran-talking-points-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/02\/thursday-iran-talking-points-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 2nd, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a><\/em>: Scott Wilson writes that shared regional fears of a nuclear weapons possessing Iran might be a catalyst for a breakthrough in this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Arab-Israeli peace talks. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ambitions, which have cast a long shadow over the greater Middle East, may serve as a common bond keeping a frail peace process intact despite threats that have arisen even before the negotiations open Thursday at the State Department,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. Wilson suggests that, if Israel is seriously considering a unilateral strike on Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alleged nuclear weapons facilities, Netanyahu will need to stick with peace talks and win goodwill with the White House.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>: Daniel Henninger defends the U.S. invasion of Iraq as preemptively cutting off Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear ambitions. Henninger theorizes that had the U.S. not invaded, Saddam Hussein would have been driven to pursue nuclear weapons in order to match Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alleged pursuit of the bomb. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In such a world, Saddam would have aspired to play in the same league as Iran and NoKo. Would we have \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccontained\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 him?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he asks. Henninger continues his exercise in hypothetical history by suggesting that Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan would enter the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nuclear marketplace\u00e2\u20ac\u009d if Iran and Iraq acquired nuclear weapons. He concludes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The sacrifice made by the United States in Iraq took one of these nuclear-obsessed madmen off the table and gave the world more margin to deal with the threat that remains, if the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leadership is up to it. A big if.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Foreign Policy<\/a><\/em>: Author Hooman Majd contests a recent U.S. talking point that sanctions are working. Citing political infighting between various conservative factions, the Obama administration argues that sanctions are having an effect<\/a>. But Majd asserts that this is politics as usual \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not a sign that there might be political space for a resurgent Green Movement. In fact, he says, no matter what happens, the real power center in Iran, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, remains firmly in the driver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seat and the nuclear calculus is still a point of mutual agreement between the many political factions.<\/p>\n

JINSA Report<\/a><\/em>: The ultra-hawkish advocacy organization, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)<\/a>, issued it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest e-mail blast calling Iran the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153elephant\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the room in nearly every U.S. and Israeli strategic challenge in the region (this mirrors the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcroad to peace leads through Tehran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 meme discussed in yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s TP<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s). The U.S. needs \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to tame it or remove\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that elephant from Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Israel-Palestinian \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpeace\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 talks,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d JINSA argues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 2nd, 2010: The Washington Post: Scott Wilson writes that shared regional fears of a nuclear weapons possessing Iran might be a catalyst for a breakthrough in this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Arab-Israeli peace talks. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ambitions, which have cast a long shadow over the greater Middle East, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"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":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"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\/7973","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\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7973"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8016,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7973\/revisions\/8016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7973"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}