Stalling by Iran does not bode well for diplomacy

Yesterday further nuclear-Iran talks took place in Geneva. As I described on Monday it looked as if Iran was going to stall rather than negotiate. And that is exactly what took place. Despite the fact that Iran agreed on October 1st to talks with France, they yesterday said that they would not hold discussions if France was present. The rationale was that France had slighted Iran in the past over the country’s nuclear program.

Clearly Iran knew that France would be in attendance at the talks. So why the fuss now? The only explanation is that Iran is not really interested in diplomacy. These talks are being used by Iran to delay action on its nuclear program. This is also something that the Russians want to have happen, too. As long as Iran has even a limited nuclear card to play they know that they have Israel and the United States’ attention. Iran knows that neither country will allow it to fully develop a weapon. Instead, similar to North Korea, the Iranians know that possibly having nuclear weapons is leverage for things it does care about. For example, Iran wants to secure its border with Iraq, a traditional enemy. That requires that Iran get the U.S.’s attention as guarantor of security in Iraq. Specifically Iran wants a powerful Shiite voice, rather than Sunni voice, in Iraq. That will help to insulate Iran’s geopolitical position. Iran also wants the U.S. and Israeli attention regarding Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah is another important foreign policy lever for the Iranians.

The question at this juncture remains: how much patience do the Israelis have for the Iranigans taking place? Because Iran is stalling and not talking at the Geneva talks I am certain that the time for diplomacy is running out. Any statements from Israel in the next several days will have tremendous weight. The other telling sign will be the joint military exercises that the U.S. and Israel are currently engaging in right now. It wouldn’t surprise me if in the course of the exercises, an “accidental” flyby by an Israeli military jet didn’t happen. Of course this accident would be a warning to the Iranians to “put up, or shut up.”

Fully acknowledging the difficulty of making timeline-like predictions about geopolitical/military events, I would have to say that the Iranians have at most 8 weeks to avert military action on the part of Israel.

In conclusion, an already tense situation is getting more tense. Will those inflating the balloon relax and take a breath, or will they keep blowing until the balloon explodes? Yikes!

Jason