{"id":8046,"date":"2010-09-10T09:44:13","date_gmt":"2010-09-10T17:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8046"},"modified":"2010-09-10T09:44:13","modified_gmt":"2010-09-10T17:44:13","slug":"friday-iran-talking-points-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/10\/friday-iran-talking-points-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 10th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a><\/em>: The Post\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s editorial board writes that while sanctions have constricted the Iranian economy, the White House \u00e2\u20ac\u0153has yet to produce tangible results\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in bringing Iran into compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The editorial cites the new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report which says that there has been no change in Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s accumulation of low-enriched uranium. If Iran is diverting weapon-grade uranium to a secret facility, then \u00e2\u20ac\u0153economic sanctions are unlikely to prevent it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d warns the Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The National<\/a><\/em>: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the U.S.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s encouragement of democratic forces in Iran, saying that support from Washington does not undermine or endanger them. Clinton told a group of policy experts that Iran was becoming a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153military dictatorship.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is a very\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 sad confluence of events occurring inside Iran that I think eventually \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put a time frame on it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the Iranian people themselves will respond to,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clinton reportedly told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this week.<\/p>\n

The National<\/a><\/em>: Jason Shams complains of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lack of understanding that persists about Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Washington, noting the absence of a U.S. embassy in Tehran that forces reliance on severely limited sources of information. The result is a U.S. policy on Iran that has been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a total blunder\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The drums of war in Washington have helped the Iranian government crush the civil rights movement; the U.S. hawkish policies are used by hardliners in Iran to rally political forces to their cause.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Shams adds that sanctions have allowed the elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to consolidate its power over industry. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153With its ineffective policies, the U.S. government has been the main obstacle for moderates in the Middle East,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he writes. He concludes that U.S. diplomats on the ground, in a U.S. interests section that mirrors the Iranian office in Washington, would gain a granular knowledge of both street level and elite politics and Iran.<\/p>\n

Foreign Policy<\/a><\/em>: William Tobey, who served in the National Nuclear Security Administration under George W. Bush, writes on FP<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shadow Government blog<\/a> that the latest IAEA report exemplifies Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unwillingness to cooperate with the international community and highlights the failure of sanctions to make any meaningful headway in slowing Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear program. Tobey argues that sanctions targeting the IRGC and others seen as responsible for the nuclear program are counter-intuitive because such elite groups are well insulated from sanctions and are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153committed militants.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The solution, he suggests, is to expand sanctions to broaden the portion of Iranian society which will \u00e2\u20ac\u0153feel the costs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the nuclear program. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As Iran marches towards nuclear capability, further delay will only narrow our options to a choice between the unacceptable and the unthinkable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he concludes.<\/p>\n

Foreign Policy<\/a><\/em>: Our IPS <\/em>colleague Omid Memarian<\/a> interviews Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s powerful opposition figure Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. She speaks of a hopelessness in Iranian politics and, asked about a potential meeting between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Barack Obama, she says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think anyone is waiting for any positive change in Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s internal or foreign politics or putting too much hope on it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She says Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaders need a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wake-up call\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and, in her next thought, positively cites the Iraqi experience: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the people of Iraq join with foreigners who attacked their country in order to free themselves from injustice and to save themselves and their country? Was this their initial demand, or did their deteriorating conditions lead them to this? It won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a bad idea to review history from time to time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 10th, 2010: The Washington Post: The Post\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s editorial board writes that while sanctions have constricted the Iranian economy, the White House \u00e2\u20ac\u0153has yet to produce tangible results\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in bringing Iran into compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The editorial cites the new International Atomic […]<\/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-8046","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\/8046","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=8046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8047,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8046\/revisions\/8047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8046"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}