Big talks today about Iran

In Geneva today part two of talks designed to control and curtail Iran’s nuclear program got under way. The entities involved are: the U.S., Iran, Russia, France and the International Atomic Energy Agency. After a limited amount of progress being made on October 1st, these discussions are seeking to finalize an agreement for Iran to process abroad all of its low-enriched uranium. Processing in foreign facilities will allow for greater transparency and quell fears that Iran is enriching uranium for manufacturing nuclear weapons.

As followers of the blog know, the U.S. needs to make progress diplomatically in order to keep Israel on a leash. Unfortunately it appears that a diplomatic solution is a remote possibility. Why?

1. Iran is playing a stalling game. Evidence of this is that Iran has pre-announced that rather than signing an agreement that they want to negotiate “conditions and suggestions.” They have asked for yet another extension past October 19th to make this happen.

2. The negotiator who represented Iran on October 1st is not participating and has instead sent low-level aides. This means that a substantive agreement is likely impossible as Iran can always claim that its top negotiator was absent. What could be so pressing on Iran’s chief negotiator’s schedule that he couldn’t attend a meeting that he set up himself? A shotgun wedding? A Paula Abdul concert?

3. The assassinations over the weekend in Iran of members of its Revolutionary Guard Corp are being blamed on Western intelligence services and specifically the United States. That gives Iran the perfect excuse to not come to the negotiating table. To say the least, the timing of the attacks is interesting.

4. Russia’s near abroad has been threatened directly by the U.S. and Israel since October 1st. The idea was to brow beat Russia into ending its support for Iran. Instead the Russians have publicly reiterated their support for Iran. In the 1950s China and the U.S. repeatedly threatened war with the other over Taiwan. This strategy was known as brinksmanship – a euphemism for playing a game of “chicken.” At this point it looks like a draw between the two sides. Assuming the two sides, U.S./Israel and Iran/Russia, keep playing the game then one side has to blink at the brink. Right now it’s hard to say who is more likely to do that. But both sides eyes are getting ready to drop the lids.

5. Israel and the U.S. were scheduled to have the largest-ever joint military exercises last week. This requires tremendous logistical set up on the part of both countries and their militaries. So it would look strange if these two forces are scheduled to come together and then suddenly delay these long planned for exercises, yes? That is exactly what has happened. The exercises were postponed until tomorrow, October 20th. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that the U.S. and Israel seem to be colluding on something big here.

6. Because the Israelis did not like the U.S. kid-glove approach to Iran it was holding out on holding joint Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations as a bargaining chit. Yet over the weekend the tone in Israel on the peace negotiations suddenly shifted. Why? Who knows? But in the context of the Iran-is-nuclear crucible it looks like a public message to Iran and Russia that the two sides are prepared to act together on many issues.

I will continue to update on this situation as it unfolds. Hopefully the blog will remain the source for information…meaning that you aren’t hearing about any of this on CNN. That will mean that I was wrong about this entire thing and that this story never erupts far enough to attract major media attention. And that would be a blessed mistake on my part and one that all of you would hopefully forgive me for.

Jason