[Peace-discuss] Parsing the White House Statement on the Iran Nuclear Fuel Swap Deal

[C. G. Estabrook]

Surely the US wasn't serious in October; its propaganda bluff has been called.

"It's not about believing that the Obama Administration is good or evil"?  Given
that the present administration is following the same foreign policy as the last
(except where it's being more brutal), does that mean we can't regard the Bush
administration as good or evil? Are you saying that that language simply can't
be applied to state actions? Haven't you called for the prosecution of Bush
administration officials?

"Was the Nixon Administration good or evil when it reached out to China?" I have
no trouble characterizing the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy, responsible for
the death of millions, as evil. But the tactical choices within this framework
can occasionally, as it were by accident, be called good.  For example, it was
good that Nixon removed US combat troops from SE Asia (after the revolt of the
American army there).

In regard to China, Nixon agreed with Kissinger that hard line policy was
unproductive and that other measures could draw China into the US-dominated
global system. At the same time Kissinger was a hawk - to put no finer point on
it - with regard to the Middle East, supporting Israel's refusal to accept a
full-scale peace treaty offered by Egypt and Jordan in early 1971 and blocking
State Department moves toward a diplomatic resolution of the Arab-Israeli
conflict, establishing a policy that still prevails and explains much of what is
happening in that region today.

As Mae West put it, "Goodness had nothing to do with it."

	US Sanctions Announcement Irks Brazil, Turkey
	Posted By Jason Ditz On May 18, 2010

After declaring the Turko-Brazilian diplomatic push with Iran the “last chance”
to settle the Western dispute with Iran without sanctions, the US did an
end-around of the diplomatic process today, announcing that they had made a deal
to sanction Iran even though a deal had been successfully reached in the talks.

Neither Brazil nor Turkey, two key US allies and current non-permanent members
of the UN Security Council, appear to be very pleased with the announcement,
with Brazilian officials saying they won’t even participate in the discussion of
the sanctions at this point.

Turkey, which was to act as the intermediary in the third party enrichment deal,
seems even more angry about the announcement, with Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu warning that it might “spoil the atmosphere” of the talks.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was even more outspoken, saying that the
move seriously damaged the credibility of the UN Security Council, particularly
as its permanent members are all armed with nuclear weapons while seeking to
punish Iran for its purely civilian program.

Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com

URL to article:
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/05/18/us-sanctions-announcement-irks-brazil-turkey/

On 5/18/10 2:46 PM, Robert Naiman wrote:
> We'll see. I am less interested in what Hillary is saying in Washington than
> in what the US says in Geneva.
>
> I think the the October proposal on the part of the US was real. Remember,
> Iran penciled agreement, but the deal collapsed when there was storm of
> protest in Iran - including opportunistic opposition from the "Green
> Movement." The fact that Iran penciled agreement indicates that the US
> proposal was not completely outrageous from Iran's point of view.
>
> If the US was serious in October, it's not obvious why the US shouldn't be
> serious now. How has the world changed to justify a substantial US shift?
>
> Now Iran has agreed to something quite similar to what the US proposed. Some
> people in Washington are upset because the Rule of the Universe is that
> Washington says when it's time to talk about peace and when it's time to
> talk about sanctions.
>
> Still, you have folks like former National Security Council staffer Gary
> Sick - who moves in circles close to the Administration - saying that the US
> should say yes. I don't think this story is over yet.
>
> Remember, it's not about believing that the Obama Administration is good or
> evil. Was the Nixon Administration good or evil when it reached out to
> China? Did reaching out to China make the world a better place? It sure did.
>
>
> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 4:24 PM, Morton K. Brussel<brussel at illinois.edu>
> wrote:
>> My response is that you are whistling through your teeth, that all the U.S.
>> is doing is to try to counteract the obvious peace-creating moves that
>> Brazil and Turkey have accomplished. The basic antagonism to the Iran
>> regime is at the root of the foreign policies of this administration, and
>> all its actions are intended to undermine that regime.  The careful
>> wording to which you allude is in my opinion nothing but an attempt to
>> continue to put pressure on the Iran regime while not seeming lurching to
>> war, thus by not showing their hand. I don't believe the Iran as
>> constituted will ever satisfy this administration. The Israel-Palestine
>> issue remains, as always, in the background, with Israel and its Lobbyists
>> still clamoring for more aggression by the U.S. In other words, the whole
>> U.S. posture is a charade, one, however, that is causing problems for the
>> administration. May it continue to have problems on this score. I hope I am
>> wrong. --mkb On May 18, 2010, at 8:59 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/its-gollllllll-for-lula-a_b_578390.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
[as an update on yesterday's post]
>> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/18/995/00833
>>
>> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/581
>>
>>
>> Perhaps I still have a bit too much of that "hopey-changey" Kool-Aid in my
>>  bloodstream, but I read the White House statement in response to the
>> Iran-Turkey-Brazil announcement as saying to Iran: "We acknowledge that you
>> moved. We're still ready to deal, and we'll see you in Geneva." The White
>> House statement is here: I think it's fair to assume that a good deal of
>> thought went into crafting this statement. Robert Gibbs did not come up
>> with these words on his own. The folks in the Obama Administration who run
>> nuclear diplomacy chose these words. So what words did they choose, and
>> what should we infer from them?
>>
>> "We acknowledge the efforts that have been made by Turkey and Brazil."
>>
>> This is positive. Regardless of what the Obama Administration said before
>> the President of Brazil went to Iran, what the Obama Administration is
>> saying now is: "Mazl Tov! Parabens! Tebrikler!" This is good. If you want a
>> deal, the role of Brazil and Turkey is positive, not negative. Clearly, the
>> involvement of Brazil and Turkey is raising the comfort level of the
>> Iranians with the fuel swap deal. That's a good thing that should be
>> encouraged. If you want a deal, you want the other side to be comfortable
>> with the deal. Plus, now Brazil and Turkey have skin in the game. If Iran
>> reneges, it's going to make Brazil and Turkey look bad. That's good. We are
>> now in a situation where it's not "P5+1" on one side of the table and Iran
>> on the other, but P5+1 on one side of the table and Iran+2 on the other. If
>> your goal is to isolate Iran, that's bad. But if your goal it's to get a
>> deal, that's good. The more signatures there are on the paper, the stronger
>> the deal is.
>>
>> "The proposal announced in Tehran must now be conveyed clearly and
>> authoritatively to the IAEA before it can be considered by the
>> international community."
>>
>> This is perfectly reasonable, and in fact welcoming. "The proposal must be
>>  sent to Geneva before it can be considered" means "when you send this
>> proposal to Geneva, I am going to consider it." Iran has said it will
>> formally submit this proposal in a week.
>>
>> "Given Iran’s repeated failure to live up to its own commitments, and the
>> need to address fundamental issues related to Iran’s nuclear program, the
>> United States and international community continue to have serious
>> concerns."
>>
>> The issue isn't resolved yet. No news there.
>>
>> "While it would be a positive step for Iran to transfer low-enriched
>> uranium off of its soil as it agreed to do last October, Iran said today
>> that it would continue its 20% enrichment, which is a direct violation of
>> UN Security Council resolutions and which the Iranian government originally
>> justified by pointing to the need for fuel for the Tehran Research
>> Reactor."
>>
>> This is the most interesting sentence to me in the White House statement.
>> First, it re-affirms that the transfer of LEU out of Iran is positive. It
>> makes no reference to the purported issue that due to subsequent
>> enrichment, the absolute amount of LEU represented by the October deal has
>> fallen as a percentage of Iran's LEU stockpile. Instead, it focuses on the
>> 20% enrichment, "which is a direct violation of UN Security Council
>> resolutions and which the Iranian government originally justified by
>> pointing to the need for fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor." This is a
>> very interesting choice of words, because while it is of course absolutely
>> true that Iran's 20% enrichment "is a direct violation of UN Security
>> Council resolutions," as everyone knows, any Iranian enrichment of uranium
>> whatsoever is just as much of "a direct violation of UN Security Council
>> resolutions" as 20% enrichment. So, while pounding the table about
>> "Iranian enrichment," the Obama Administration is making a deliberate
>> choice to only pound the table about 20% enrichment, which is a billion
>> times more reasonable than pounding the table about enrichment per se.
>> Regardless of what one thinks about the intrinsic signifance of 20%
>> enrichment - this enrichment is under IAEA inspection, after all - as a
>> political matter, 1) Iran was not doing 20% enrichment at the time of the
>> October negotiation, 2) the Administration correctly notes that Iran said
>> it was doing 20% enrichment to fuel the Tehran Research Reactor, and so, as
>> the Administration's statement implies, in terms of meeting Iran's needs,
>> if there is a fuel swap deal, Iran should be willing to suspend 20%
>> enrichment, and in any event 3) Iran's decision to go to 20% enrichment
>> was universally interpreted as an Iranian pressure tactic to push the West
>> on negotiations around the fuel deal (Iran is not believed to have the
>> technology to use the 20% enriched uranium as fuel in its medical research
>> reactor), so again, if that was the goal of the Iranian move, then Iran
>> should be willing to back off of 20% enrichment as part of a deal on the
>> fuel swap.
>>
>> "Furthermore, the Joint Declaration issued in Tehran is vague about Iran’s
>>  willingness to meet with the P5+1 countries to address international
>> concerns about its nuclear program, as it also agreed to do last October."
>>
>> Which merely reaffirms that the goal of all this was to support the P5+1
>> negotiation, so if that negotiation does not go forward, the fuel swap deal
>> doesn't have any meaning. Again, no news here. In sum, I read the
>> Administration statement as saying: we'll see you in Geneva, and when we
>> see you in Geneva, we're going to ask you about two things: 20%
>> enrichment, and the ongoing dialogue with the P5+1 about your nuclear
>> program. And if we get satisfaction on these points, we can still have a
>> deal. Of course, it will be pointed out to us that all of this is "only"
>> about an interim deal, to tide us over, to slow down the clock, to
>> deescalate tensions and build confidence for the main negotiation. So? The
>> beauty and significance of the fuel swap deal which was proposed by the
>> United States was that the US was making clear to Iran that the US was
>> willing to talk about other means by which Iran could establish
>> international confidence in its nuclear intentions besides the non-starter
>> demand of suspension of enrichment. If this is still the US position, then
>> there is a plausible path to a meaningful negotiation.

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