{"id":8447,"date":"2010-10-29T14:05:55","date_gmt":"2010-10-29T22:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8447"},"modified":"2010-10-29T14:05:55","modified_gmt":"2010-10-29T22:05:55","slug":"friday-iran-talking-points-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/29\/friday-iran-talking-points-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 29th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

The National Interest<\/a><\/em>: Ted Galen Carpenter writes that while the Obama administration has said it wants to use diplomacy to bring an end to Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear program, Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s negotiating strategy casts doubts on the administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sincerity. He remarks that the latest U.S. and European offer, as it currently stands, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153includes conditions that are tougher <\/em>than those contained in the version that the Ayatollah Ali Kamanei rejected last year.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He identifies two possible reasons: the P5+1 might have no interested in a negotiated settlement or that European American policymakers are confident the sanctions regime is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153beginning to bite\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so the Iranians are ready to capitulate. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the former explanation is true, the conduct of Washington and its allies is both reprehensible and dangerous,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if the latter explanation is true, Western negotiators may be overestimating\u00e2\u20ac\u201dperhaps wildly overestimating\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe impact of the latest round of sanctions,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d concludes Galen. He proposes that if Obama is sincere in pursuing a settlement, then concessions and compromise are required, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not the State Department\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s version of macho posturing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Jerusalem Post<\/a><\/em>: Hilary Leila Krieger reports on the Obama administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempts to revise the uranium enrichment deal with Tehran that collapsed last year as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153confidence-building step\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to move forward talks it hopes to reconvene in November . The original proposal, negotiated in Vienna last October, involved Iran sending most of its enriched uranium to France and Russia for further enrichment. Mark Dubowitz, the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>‘ Iran expert, yet again endorses crippling sanctions and warns Iran will probably just use the negotiations as a stalling technique. This has been his consistent meme in numerous<\/a> op-eds<\/a> and interviews<\/a>. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The sanctions are clearly inflicting serious damage on the Iranian economy and forcing the regime to implement measures to counter the impact of sanctions,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dubowitz assessed. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Some of these countermeasures, like massive reductions in subsidies for gasoline and other commodities, could be economically disastrous and further fan the flames of political discontent.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think the Iranian regime genuinely believes [it] can withstand the economic and political pressure,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he concluded.<\/p>\n

Time<\/a><\/em>: Vivienne Walt writes that while U.S. and European sanctions appear to be having an effect on Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economy, Iran still has many economic allies and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153even the U.S.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s close allies in Europe have stopped short of cutting their relations with Iran.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d While Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trade relationships with the West continues to be challenged by sanctions, Iran is expanding its alliances with Asian countries eager to access Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oil and take on the contracts abandoned by departing Western companies. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Despite that flexibility in the sanctions, many European politicians believe that the U.S. has strong-armed them into following Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s demands on Iran,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and companies are under pressure to cut ties with Iran, even if not required to do so by their governments. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Because the U.S. has Iran on a blacklist, the rest of the world has to follow,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a Swiss investment manager told Walt. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What makes it a shady country anyway? Because the U.S. says so? The U.S. is trying to corner other countries.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 29th, 2010: The National Interest: Ted Galen Carpenter writes that while the Obama administration has said it wants to use diplomacy to bring an end to Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear program, Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s negotiating strategy casts doubts on the administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sincerity. He remarks that the latest U.S. […]<\/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-8447","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\/8447","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=8447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8448,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8447\/revisions\/8448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8447"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}