Reading Progress:

How the Media Will Blame Iran for the Failure of ‘Negotiations’

by Apr 14, 2012Articles, Foreign Policy1 comment

U.S. policy towards Iran has about as much to do with its nuclear program as its policy towards Iraq with WMD and ties to al Qaeda.

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Steven Erlanger reports in the New York Times how the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—the U.S., Russia, China, France, and Britain—plus Germany) are in talks with Iran for the first time since January 2011. At those talks, Erlanger writes, the Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili “lectured rather than negotiated, and demanded preconditions for serious talks that were unacceptable to the six powers.”

Okay, let’s translate that. What happened was that the U.S. and friends (read “U.S.”) were demanding that Iran surrender its “inalienable right” under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and Iran was insisting that its rights under the NPT first be acknowledged by the U.S. before negotiations could move forward. The U.S. refused, and the talks failed.

So what you had was the U.S. lecturing Jalili, and demanding a precondition that Iran surrender its rights under the NPT, which was of course unacceptable to Iran. This is the situation Erlanger describes as Jalili having “lectured rather than negotiated, and demanded preconditions for serious talks that were unacceptable to the six powers.”

Now the U.S. has upped the ante, issuing an even stronger ultimatum to Iran. Iran must now, the U.S. demands, renounce its right to enrichment and close down and dismantle its Fordow enrichment plant, “the one facility that is most hardened against airstrike” (New York Times), which Iran constructed precisely because it the U.S. and Israel constantly threaten to bomb its nuclear facilities.

As I posted a couple days ago, the talks will fail because the U.S. is not serious about negotiating. But this will be reported in the media as Iran not being serious about negotiating, despite the extraordinary efforts of the U.S. to engage in “diplomacy”, and when “diplomacy” fails, the only “option” remaining “on the table” will be violence. Iran will reject the U.S.’s ultimatum, and the U.S. will ultimately need to uphold its “credibility”, either directly or via Israel, and there will be war.

Maybe not soon. The U.S. punished the people of Iraq for nearly a decade—Secretary of State Madelleine Albright infamously declaring that the “price” of half a million dead children as a result of sanctions was “worth it”—before it had the pretext (9/11) required to manufacture consent for the military “option” to enforce its “credibility” by taking out Saddam Hussein.

And U.S. policy towards Iran has about as much to do with its nuclear program as its policy towards Iraq with WMD and ties to al Qaeda. Iran’s sin is that it won’t follow marching orders from Washington, and this will not be tolerated.

Let us hope either Ron Paul is elected or the financial collapse occurs and the empire is bankrupted before this plays out to its endgame.

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  • Shane says:

    There is not one doubt in my mind who to vote for and that is Ron Paul. He is the only candidate who is even for Americans. The others are for everybody except Americans. How any of these other candidates can even be considered for the job is beyond me. The others want to continue to tax and spend, give our borrowed money to other countries, police the world at our expense, control our every move from craddle to grave, treat us like idiots who can not take care of ourselves without there constant vigilance, strengthen the already giant monopolies of the media, hollywood, banking, federal reserve, defense machine,and retail prices of everything, for the wealthy elite.Our country has been taken over by outsiders who do not have our best interest in mind. Israel has more power in our country than all the teachers associations of america put together. Inorder to run for a major office you must have the blessings of the american israel political action group or there media will exclude you as being unelectable and proceed to destroy you in the eyes of the voters. You have only to look at what they did to president carter when he came out with his book about “the truth” how Israel is mistreating the palestinians. ..He was attacked by the american media from all sides, which is proof enough for me to be in favor of immediate break up of our media monopoly with redistribution of stations to insure freedom of speech for all. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has not agreed to attack Iran at the demand of Israel. Therefore he is considered unelectable by the media and all the people who live by the word of the media. If the jews want peace , they should agree to give up there atomic bombs in exchange for Iran stopping there atomic adventures. If either country needs atomic energy for utilities, they should be allowed to buy atomic power plants from the major powers, with the main goal being to do away with atomic weapons as soon as possible for all. The day of aggression must be over for all and we must learn to be happy with what we have and never covet what our neighbor has

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