{"id":8829,"date":"2010-12-15T01:38:23","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T09:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8829"},"modified":"2010-12-16T15:43:57","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T23:43:57","slug":"wednesday-iran-talking-points-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/15\/wednesday-iran-talking-points-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 15th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

The Diplomat<\/a><\/em>: American Enterprise Institute<\/a> Scholar Michael Rubin<\/a> is interviewed on The Diplomat<\/em> blog on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153how sanctions can work with Iran.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rubin says that sanctions are having both an economic and reputational impact. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Iranians] look at themselves as a country that was once on par with European countries like Spain and Portugal, and they see themselves now following headlong into the third world,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. Rubin advocates tightening sanctions on Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s banking sector and on passenger air travel as a way of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[making] life a little bit more inconvenient.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rubin says he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153never rule out a military option\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but acknowledges that containment might be a more likely path than bombing. He concludes that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pessimistic about stopping Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear program with either diplomacy or a military strike and questions whether Israel has the capability to launch military strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a><\/em>: The neoconservative<\/a> blogger<\/a> Jennifer Rubin writes that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pundits on the left\u00e2\u20ac\u009d have for years said that negotiations with Iran should focus on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei instead of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Scholars and pundits critical of the administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Iran engagement policy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d have argued that Ahmadinejad is a central player and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153talking him out of pursuing nuclear weapons is a dangerous fantasy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she argues. Rubin points to Ahmadinejad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s firing of<\/a> Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki as the latest evidence backing up the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccritics.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations tells Jennifer Rubin that the move is part of an ongoing consolidation of power by Ahmadinejad. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (WINEP) Michael Singh e-mails her and says: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I view this as just the first move in a power struggle over foreign policy, and it is too soon to tell how it will shake out.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rubin suggests the latest events support the idea of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reflect[ing] on our current policy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d presumably switching to her own flawed prescriptions for aggressive military action<\/a>. She concludes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those who advocate continued engagement, I would submit, have the burden of proof to demonstrate that we are doing more good than harm in continuing to participate in the Ahmadinejad-orchestrated charade.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 15th, 2010: The Diplomat: American Enterprise Institute Scholar Michael Rubin is interviewed on The Diplomat blog on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153how sanctions can work with Iran.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rubin says that sanctions are having both an economic and reputational impact. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Iranians] look at themselves as a country that was […]<\/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-8829","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\/8829","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=8829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8831,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8829\/revisions\/8831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8829"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}