In the preferred U.S. narratives, American leaders are always wise and rational but must deal with pigheaded and crazy adversaries. That is the way the current U.S.-Iranian nuclear negotiations are presented inside Official Washington but there is a very different reality, as Gareth Porter explains.
Neocon-domination of Official Washington continues to put an eminently reachable deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in jeopardy because the neocons favor bombing Iran on a path for “regime change.” But their obstructionism hurts U.S. interests, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Neocons and other U.S. hardliners, who want to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran, never stop scheming up ways to torpedo a deal that would constrain but not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, with the latest idea a threat to impose new sanctions if Iran doesn’t capitulate, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
America’s neocons remain dug in against normalizing U.S. relations with Iran — as Israel’s hardline leadership still places Iran at the top of its enemies list — but Iranian leaders appear willing to transform decades of anti-U.S. hostility into a “cordial rivalry,” writes Trita Parsi.
President Obama’s failure to sign off on a final nuclear agreement with Iran, which would have reined in but not eradicated its nuclear enrichment program, undercuts Iran’s moderate President Rouhani and strengthens the hardliners who never trusted Obama and the U.S., as Ted Snider describes.
American neocons are furious that President Obama reportedly sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei apparently urging concessions on nuclear talks and referencing joint interests in combating Islamic State radicals, but the letter may reflect smart diplomacy, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
The determination of U.S. neocons and Israeli politicians to make Iran and its allies the great evils in the Middle East has prevented any rational U.S. policy toward the region, even to the point of facilitating possible victories by Sunni extremists in Syria and Iraq, as Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi explains.
As the July 20 deadline for an Iranian nuclear deal nears, Iranian leaders have laid out a possible compromise, accepting stricter limits on centrifuges for power plants now with a chance for expansion later as the country’s energy needs grow, as Gareth Porter reports for Inter Press Service.
The crisis in Iraq is finally getting some U.S. policymakers to apply some pragmatism to events in the Middle East, including a recognition that Iran could help stabilize the region, as Flynt Leverett, Hillary Mann Leverett and Seyed Mohammad Marandi note.
Iran’s insistence on having its own capability to enrich uranium for its nuclear reactors stems from its bitter experience when forced to rely on outside suppliers that were susceptible to international political pressures, Gareth Porter reports for Inter Press Service.