{"id":8138,"date":"2010-09-17T13:04:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T21:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8138"},"modified":"2010-09-17T13:04:20","modified_gmt":"2010-09-17T21:04:20","slug":"friday-iran-talking-points-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/17\/friday-iran-talking-points-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 17th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>: Joe Parkinson reports on Turkish Prime Minister Tayyup Erdogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comments on Thursday that Ankara is seeking to triple its trade with Iran over the next five years. Erdogran told business delegates in Istanbul that Turkey and Iran were on the verge of signing a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153preferential trade agreement\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that trade volumes between the two countries could swell to $30 billion. Turkey has been seeking to strengthen ties with its neighbors, including Iraq, Syria and Russia, after the recent deterioration of relations with Israel. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see any reason why we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t establish an unimpeded trade mechanism with Iran similar to the one with Europe,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Erdogran said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There are lots of things that we can give to Iran, as Turkey has made a serious industrial leap.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Erdogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement is likely to further strain relations between Washington and Ankara, as the Obama administration is seeking to tighten sanctions enforcement and deter investors from trading with Iran.<\/p>\n

Washington Post<\/a><\/em>: Columnist David Ignatius hints the Obama administration may be ready to take up Iran on its offer of cooperation in Afghanistan \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and endorses this possibility. He notes that Iran, which has its own interests in combating Afghan drug smuggling and hardline Sunni influence on its borders, has made some positive moves with regards to stabilizing Afghanistan. Now the administration must weigh whether engaging Iran on a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153separate track\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d i.e., Afghanistan \u00e2\u20ac\u201d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153might blunt U.S. pressure on the nuclear issue\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or whether engagement \u00e2\u20ac\u0153could be an important confidence-building measure.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Neoconservative writer Michael Rubin<\/a> has already attacked the notion of such cooperation<\/a> on the National Review<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s The Corner blog.<\/p>\n

Foreign Policy<\/a><\/em>: Marc Lynch, in a cross-post on his own FP <\/em>blog and its Mid East Channel, writes that the Obama administration appears to be pursuing a path of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Keeping Tehran in a Box\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00c3\u00a0 la<\/em> U.S. policy toward Iraq in the 1990s. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Eventually, as with Iraq,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the choices may well narrow sufficiently and the perception of impending threat mount so that a President \u00e2\u20ac\u201d maybe Obama, maybe Palin, maybe anyone else \u00e2\u20ac\u201d finds him or herself faced with \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcno choice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 but to move towards war.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He observes it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not a pretty scenario\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153variants of the status quo\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are needed as clearly designated \u00e2\u20ac\u0153off-ramps\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to avoid getting stuck in dead end policy positions. He posits an enrichment deal or a change in Iranian internal politics as the sort of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153off-ramp\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that might avoid the current trajectory of the U.S.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Iran policy, but he concedes neither are incredibly likely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for September 17th, 2010: The Wall Street Journal: Joe Parkinson reports on Turkish Prime Minister Tayyup Erdogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comments on Thursday that Ankara is seeking to triple its trade with Iran over the next five years. Erdogran told business delegates in Istanbul that Turkey and Iran were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"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-8138","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\/8138","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\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8139,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8138\/revisions\/8139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8138"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}