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The Spectacle Blog
Tomorrow, representatives from the United States and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council (plus Germany) will sit down for talks in Baghdad with representatives from Iran. They’ll be meeting with Islamic Republic’s security council chief to gauge Tehran’s commitment to its nuclear program, and its willingness to curtail uranium enrichment, both significantly and transparently.
The talks come mere days after Yukiya Amano, director of the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA), announced he had reached terms granting the nuclear watchdog unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear sites and scientists. On the bright side, this is the first time since 2007 that Iran has allowed access to its nuclear infrastructure. However, skeptics claim that Iran’s assurances of compliance simply hint at a none-too-subtle attempt to earn some leverage at the bargaining table. Of course, they’re probably right.
Regardless, here’s what’s going on behind the scenes at the Baghdad talks:
- Grand Ayatollah Khamenei tapped Saeed Jalili as his personal emissary and chief negotiator. Although Jalili’s not regularlydiscussed in the Western press, he’s a bonafide ideologue and institutional hardliner who lost a leg fighting on the front lines of the Iran-Iraq war. His doctoral thesis in political science discussed the relevance of the Prophet Muhammd’s seventh century musings to present day foreign affair. Good luck negotiating with this guy.
- With that said, there are serious, and growing fractures in Iran’s leadership structure. President Ahmedinejad is on the outs, and top-tier clerical leadership is increasingly reliant on its allies in the military. Expect foreign delegates to attempt to negotiate around Jalili — and attempt to treat with IRGC elements that may hold loyalty to Ayatollah Rafsanjani, as opposed to the ruling regime hierarchy.
- These talks have more to do with public perception than actual gains — the United States and her partners are trying to impart that they mean business — not only to leadership in Tehran, but to Iran’s four key customers in China, India, South Korea and Japan. Iran exports most of its 2.2 million barrels of crude, per day, to these four Asian states. Absent their decision to boycott Iran’s oil wealth, the Islamic Republic enjoys a barely sufficient reserve of money and power to stay afloat. South Korea now appears ready to get on board with Western import bans.
- Expect the Iranians to be in a foul humor. What else is new, right? Well, on Monday, the U.S. Senate extended crippling sanctions on the IRGC’s hold on oil profits — specifically their ability to ship oil and natural gas using their own fleet. In a society where the average Iranian depends on a monthly governmentallowance of $38 to purchase food, fuel and medicine, the impact of such sanctions are destructive to social cohesion. See, my second point.
- However effective the sanctions are proving — and I am confident they are having a disastrous effect on the Iranian economy — they can’t remove the primary impetus to build a nuke. A nuclear weapons program is most effective as a defensive deterrent. If you don’t believe me, just ask Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. Oh, wait…
- Expect representatives from the United States and the EU to press for access to two particular sites that must command strictest scrutiny from international observers. The first, Parchin, is a military complex where nuclear weapons test may have occurred. The second, Fordow, is buried deep underground and may prove impervious to an Israeli air attack.
View all comments (29) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Reid Smith
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/05/22/behind-the-scenes-at-the-upcom
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Al Adab| 5.22.12 @ 5:38PM
Talks with Iran? As Paul Revere and the Raiders once sang, "Too much talk and not enough action."
Red Phillips | 5.22.12 @ 6:11PM
I was going to post a spoof comment by Fearful Iran Hysteric or some such carrying on about how talks with Iran are futile and we need to commence bombing right away. It seems Al Adab has stolen my thunder. It is impossible to spoof such mindless blood lust.
Al Adab| 5.22.12 @ 6:59PM
Why do you assume action means a military attack? There are many ways to skin a cat. However, your fear betrays you. Iran will use whatever device they concoct. The only reliable prevention is a cure. For example, a single thermobaric device alone would rid the world of the Natanz facility. I suppose you may define such an action as an attack, but no blood would be shed, at least on the part of the user and if, my friend, that is bloodlust, I suggest you review the comments from Irans president. Action should have been taken years ago, but Bush passed. It would have been perhaps cheaper then than now. If you understood the enemy you would not be so quick to criticize those who do.
Red Phillips | 5.22.12 @ 7:07PM
"If you understood the enemy you would not be so quick to criticize those who do."
Al, you do not understand Iran. The Iran you believe you understand is a caricature concocted by fear mongering interventionist hysterics. The real Iran is not the irrational martyr state the hysterics portray.
Al Adab| 5.22.12 @ 7:15PM
I laugh. Neither an interventionist (I) nor a martyr state (Iran). Neither of which facts belie the danger the regime presents. Inshallah.
Red Phillips | 5.22.12 @ 7:19PM
Al, if you presuppose that America has the right to tell another sovereign nation what weapons they can and cannot have, then you are an interventionist by definition. What country gets to tell the US what weapons we can and cannot have?
Al Adab| 5.22.12 @ 7:32PM
Russia apparently, as Putin just a couple weeks ago threatened a preemptive (his word) strike against NATO if the U S installed anti-missle systems in Eastern Europe. This is the world state to which this administration has brought us.
Were they interventionists who established the Washington Naval Treaty or the Kellogg-Briand Pact? Under your definition appatrently so.
In order to be secure and disengage from these constant wars about the world (which aims I support) the U S must be second to none in military power, prepared to use it if necessary and respected if not feared by other nations of the world.
For your evenings entertainment please Google my name, you might do a little research. Good night.
Red Phillips | 5.22.12 @ 7:46PM
Al, if Russia wanted to put anti-missile systems in Mexico and Canada, we would object too. You are illustrating an essential feature of American style interventionism - that a different set of rules apply to the US than apply to other nations because we are special or something. The true conservative does not want his country to be "special." The true conservative wants his country to be normal. The revolutionary Jacobin wants his country to be special.
"In order to be secure and disengage from these constant wars about the world" we need to disengage from these constant wars about the world. The relationship between "strength" (strength to do what?) and remaining disengaged is more closely the inverse. This is one reason why the wiser of the Founders warned against the perils of a permanent standing army.
Purple Lips| 5.23.12 @ 11:01AM
Mexico and China do not regularly threaten to incinerate the US. Any other strawmen?
Red Phillips | 5.23.12 @ 2:34PM
When has Iran threatened to pre-emptively "incinerate" the US? Links please. They have threatened to strike us if we threaten them.
Occam's Tool| 5.26.12 @ 5:44PM
Right, Red: taking the American embassy was quite rational. I support carpet bombing Teheran. It worked in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
Less name calling and more proof of rationality, please, from the country that thinks of certain squirrels as "vicious Zionist spies."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articl.....30,00.html (it was also reported on hot air, and many, many other sites)
Jack in Wi.| 5.22.12 @ 6:15PM
There has never ever been any need to attack Iran. Iran has always been in agreement with it's committments under the Nuclear Non Proliferation treaties that it has signed. They have reached more agreement with the UN negotiaters which go far beyond any treaty it has signed. Iran is fully inspected and is bulding no nuclear weapons. This is attested to by all our combined intelligence services, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and our Secretary of Defense. Sane Israli's in large numbers in Israel's defense and intelligence communities agree with this assesment. They include former Mossad chiefs Halevey and Dagin as well as former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin. Diskin has called Netanyahu and Barak unstable and not to be trusted.
To attack Iran with no evidence and no sane reason other the the Messianic lunacy put forth by the Israeli regime is a war crime as bad or worse then Hitler's attack on Poland or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Criminals like Netanyahu and his American enablers belong in prison for life not running country's. June 8th is the 45 aniversary of the dastardly attack on the USS Liberty. Let us remember these brave hero's who fought our enemy and lost there lives or were wounded. The traitors who surpressed their story all these years including LBJ and Robert McNamara deserve to be called out for what they were. Lets honor these men by remembering their great sacrifice and never again be taken in by the criminals who run Israel.
Doug Bandow who writes on this site has written a wonderful essay on the Know Nothing foreign policy of Mitt Romney. Everyone who wants to know the facts about where Romney would lead this country should get ahold of it. I believe it is availible at the CATO Institute. I believe Obama has been a disaster on Foreign policy. But given the choice between a lunatic like McCain and a know nothing like Romney, Obama looks like a sane and sober leader.
Red Phillips | 5.22.12 @ 6:29PM
Here is the Bandow article. It's right on except when he is talking up "international institutions" re. trade with China.
http://www.cato.org/publicatio.....nothingism
Purple Lips| 5.23.12 @ 10:59AM
Yes, the 180 plutonium centrifuges that were spinning weapons grade plutonium and recently fell victim to the Stuxnet virus were for peaceful pursuits.
Red Phillips | 5.23.12 @ 2:34PM
Our own intelligence services deny Iran is working on a nuke. You know more than the CIA?
ACD| 5.23.12 @ 3:46PM
Hey Red, you're just as much a slave to your masters as the CIA is, and not coincidentally, you've got the same master, our Dear Leader, Il Duce Nero. The CIA tells him what they think he wants to hear (and told GWB what they wanted him to hear--a bit different, but demonstrating their own institutional ideology, which has for a generation been relentlessly pro-Islam and anti-American). You, and the CIA, truly believe that your own wonderfulness and brilliance will soothe the savage beastly enemies of this country. Well, that's appeasement dressed up as sophistication. Our enemies know better, while you continue to delude yourself.
The CIA knows that it is lying to further political purposes. You should be at least as honest.
Oh, and when, not if, the Russians and Iranians decide to plant a suitcase nuke, or lob an old SCUD with a new warhead west towards a NATO ally, or Israel, or a US airbase, or all of the above, will your excuse be that "the CIA said it would never happen, so it can't be Iranian plutonium in that bomb?" That excuse might not carry the day.
Better to excise the cancer while it's small enough to manage. That's what serious nations have always done, throughout history.
Occam's Tool| 5.26.12 @ 5:51PM
The Iranians have clearly stated that they want to destroy Israel with military force. It's obvious to everyone not stupid enough to deliberately piss off the US Secret Service...oh, wait, Jack, you did. Pretty damn stupid, aren't you.
Clint| 5.22.12 @ 7:11PM
" Israel Is Not About to Attack Iran and Neither is the United States: Get Used To It
By Barry Rubin
" So why are Israelis talking about a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities? Because that’s a good way –indeed, the only way Israel has--to pressure Western countries to work harder on the issue, to increase sanction and diplomatic efforts. If one believes that somehow pushing Tehran into slowing down or stopping its nuclear weapons’ drive is the only alternative to war, that greatly concentrates policymakers’ minds. Personally, I don't participate--consciously or as an instrument--in disinformation campaigns, even if they are for a good cause.
If Israel attacks Iran would it have backing from anyone else in the world? No, in fact the United States strongly opposes such an operation. Iranian retaliation against oil shipping and terrorist attacks would lead (not overly brave and already appeasement-oriented) Western governments to blame Israel, not Iran. Launching such an attack would ensure a level of international isolation for Israel far higher than what exists today. The idea that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq makes an Israeli attack more attractive is absurd."
Bob K.| 5.23.12 @ 2:41AM
This viewpoint from the Middle East indicates that Iran is much more positive about these talks than Reid Smith is telling us here. But Reid has his instructions no doubt and must follow them.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NE22Ak01.html
Reid Smith| 5.23.12 @ 10:19AM
All opinions expressed in this blog are my own. Believe me. If I'm less sanguine about the prospect for these talks than the former ambassador featured in the Asia Times, then I simply and respectfully disagree with his assessment.
Regardless, thanks for bringing his thoughts to the discussion.
Occam's Tool| 5.26.12 @ 5:50PM
I believe that it will take military intervention to see Iran reasses its situation. Libya and Egypt have demonstrated that negotiation with the US and submission to US desires will only destabilize one's regime. Therefore, force will be required. Iran is an enemy of the US for reasons which have nothing to do with Israel; nonetheless, Israel is the proxy force that will be used.
Personally, I want the Iranian pieces off the board, and collateral damage is meaningless to me.
And, Clint, if you think that the Israelis who are opposing intervention are doing so with a straight face, then you also believe that the Egyptian overthrow of Mubarak will reult in a secular state...wait, you did. Pretty damn dumb, aren't you?
You always think of the Israelis as intricate puzzle masters and dissemblers except when you think of them doing something that will actually benefit them...they destroyed Syrian and Iraqi nuclear capabilities. Why wouldn't they do it to the hapless, blowhard Iranians?
Occam's Tool| 5.26.12 @ 5:52PM
Sorry, "reassess." Oh, and here come the "genocide" card throwers again, starting with Reid.
dca| 5.23.12 @ 12:15PM
Actually I'm surprised at the multiple expressions of love and coddling for the scheming Persians that I've read in these comments so far.
Folks, there's nothing to talk about with Iran. Iran has very clearly stated its intentions: wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and develop nuclear weapons, with Russian help, to dominate the middle east and blackmail/dilute American interests there. Why do we not believe people when they say things, and act accordingly?
Here's the proper negotiation position (channeling Michael Corleone at the beginning of Godfather 2): "Dear representatives of the Islamic Dictatorship of Iran, the U.S. offers the following in order to incentivize you to stop funding Hezbollah, propping up the murderous Syrian regime, and cooperating with the Russians to develop nuclear weapons: Nothing. Not a dime, not a removal of sanctions, not an invitation to future discussions. Nothing. And further, if at any point, in our sole discretion, we judge that your regime poses a threat to any American or any American interest anywhere on the globe (or in space, for that matter), we will, upon 24 hours prior written notice, so that you can evacuate women and children if you so choose, begin removing square miles of your major cities, either with B-52s or tactical nuclear weapons, or both. Any retaliation will be an act of war, to which we will respond accordingly. Thanks for your attention to this matter. Do not contact any representative of the U.S. government, except in writing. No Iranian national is permitted to enter any territory controlled by the U.S. until further notice. All Iranian-controlled bank accounts are frozen until further notice. Effective today, your embassies in U.S. territory are forfeit to the U.S. government, and we are closing our embassy in Tehran, which we're happy to give back to you after we've finished removing the property we own. Your property will be shipped back to you in due course, after proper review for export control and national security purposes. Have a nice day."
Anything short of that is appeasement and surrender. I don't care what the Israelis choose to do. If we pay them to do the dirty work of eliminating the nuke production sites in Iran, I guess that's ok, but it's second-best. Time to stop pussyfooting around and get back to killing our enemies rather than licking their a-holes in the hopes they'll delay killing us.
Skippy| 5.23.12 @ 1:26PM
RTFO
Clint| 5.23.12 @ 8:42PM
" Ex-Israeli officials criticize Netanyahu’s bellicose stance on Iran
The former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency has criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for adopting a bellicose stance on Iran, according to the Haaretz daily.
Yuval Diskin, who was speaking at a public meeting in Beit-ul-Moqaddas (Jerusalem) on Friday, said Israel’s political leaders are exaggerating the effectiveness of a possible military attack on Iran, AP reported.
“I don’t have faith in the current leadership of Israel…,” he stated.
“I do not believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on Messianic feelings,” Diskin added.
Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan backed Diskin on Sunday, saying that he disagrees with Netanyahu’s policy on solving Iran’s issue, according to Haaretz.
He also called a strike against Iran’s nuclear program “stupid”, AP reported.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at a conference hosted by the Jerusalem Post in New York on Sunday that he is against an attack on Iran, criticizing Netanyahu’s policy on Iran, Bloomberg reported.
In addition, Israel’s military chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, in an interview with Haaretz published on April 25, said that he does not believe Iran will decide to develop nuclear weapons, describing the country’s leadership as “very rational”.
“I think the Iranian leadership is comprised of very rational people,” Gantz stated."