Another proposal to Iran:
Three European Union countries submitted a draft resolution to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency Friday declaring that Iran had violated treaty obligations by secretly developing a nuclear program that could be used to build weapons. A vote on the matter by the agency’s board was scheduled for Saturday, sparking complaints from countries that wanted to delay a showdown.
The resolution from Britain, France and Germany is slightly softer than an earlier version that would have immediately reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions…
The European resolution, if approved, would declare Iran to be in “noncompliance” with its nuclear obligations, a finding that would make it obligatory for the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency to report the case to the Security Council. But the resolution leaves open the question of when a referral would be made.
A key argument that U.S. and European diplomats are using to sway Iran’s backers to their side is that it would be possible to delay sending the matter to the Security Council for years if Iran changes its behavior.
What is the point to this sort of negotiation, because I just don’t see it.
CadillaqJaq
Point? Jeesh, John… there is no “point,” the negotiations are the point: proof-positive to the world that they “care.”
This is akin to Tom Foley, D-formerly representing WA when he claimed in effect, “… it’s not whether there’s any guilt involved, it’s the seriousness of the charges that’s important.”
IMO, it’s not finding a solution that’s important,it’s just that they are negotiating. Neville Chamberlain deja vu. What a fuckin’ waste of valuble time.
demimondian
Of course there’s a point.
The Iranian government has backed itself into a corner. It can’t be pushed into not enriching Uranium, as that would be a lethal blow to its internal credibility. Equally, however, it must be prevented from enriching Uranium — and, whatever else the moronic invasion of Iraq has shown, it has shown that the US is willing to act unilaterally if the UN doesn’t support the nation’s actions. If Iran is referred to the security council, then its government is put in a position from which it can’t back down.
On the other hand, the United States’ willingness to act unilaterally means that the IAEA must put get Iran to move. This is a gambit through which the IAEA can put still more pressure on Iran without laying down an ultimatum.
To a diplomat, as long as the pressure continues to rise, Iran will eventually be left with no choice but to buckle. In general, though, it’s cheaper to give them a way to buckle and win than it is to require them to buckle and lose anyway. In the latter case, you’re left with a war, no matter what, and wars are expensive and unpredicatable.
Ryan Waxx
The point is to delay the U.S. and the U.N. from doing anything meaningful until the nukes are done, and then Iran can choose to be aggressive and/or repressive as it pleases beneath a nuclear umbrella. Train terrorists in camps that can’t be destroyed by invasion, destabilize neighboring countries and bring them under the repressive Islamic umbrella, and go for superpower status at which point the clensing of the earth of nonbelievers can truly begin.
Oh, you meant what is the point from the point of view of the rest of the world… sorry. Well, establinshing ‘dialogue’ keeps the diplomats paid, after all. And said don’t get fired if Iran gets nukes… in fact if that happened they’d probably get more money to establish dialogue with.
Bush would probably like to do something, but he would never get cooperation from the legislature after the crippling blows the antiwar movement gave to him… heck, even the no-brainer task of keeping troops in Iraq until the new government is firmed up is difficult in this political climate.
So Bush is out, which means Britain is out, and Germany/France/China/Russia would rather sell them nukes than stop them from getting them. Who’s left? Isreal? Iran has already planned on Isreal’s involvment, ever since Isreal took out the LAST Islamic nuke-maker factory.
stickler
What’s the point? Well, consider our alternatives.
Act unilaterally? How? Massive air attacks and then … what? We are not invading Iran. Not this year, not next year. We don’t have the manpower.
Just think about “acting unilaterally” for a minute. Say we bomb them. They aren’t going to just sit there and take it, they’ll shoot back — and they can shut down the Straits of Hormuz. We can’t afford the disruption world oil supply. The Shiite south of Iraq is thoroughly penetrated by Iranian security and would make our occupation hell if we bombed Iran.
So, what was the alternative to negotiation, again?
Tim F
We should treat them like North Korea. I hear that works.
Tim F
The Iranian mullahs would love it if we bombed them. It would rally the public around their leaders, propping them up forever, and give them an excuse to step out of the shadows in their support for Iraqi insurgents and political movements. For a lark imagine the insurgents roaming in squads numbering in the thousands and armed with modern anti-tank hardware.
DougJ
Yup. I think that at some level this whole dispute about nuclear weapons helps them politically.
demomondian
Indeed it does. Bombing Iran would only be a wise move if the threat of nuclear proliferation exceeded that of incremental retaliation.
Not that I’ve come to expect many wise moves from the current PResident-Elect, but, hey, there’s a first time for almost anything.
jobiuspublius
Ryan Waxx, history doesn’t teach you that smart diplomacy works?
Ryan Waxx
If anything, history teaches the opposite, since it is the failures of diplomacy which tend to make historians write about the event.
Of course, let us note that there are times diplomacy cannot succeed… and it usually depends greatly on your definition of success.
If by ‘success’, you mean keeping Iran from building nukes, diplomacy cannot succeed because one of the parties is totally uninterested in having diplomacy succeed in that way. Diplomacy is an AGREEMENT, even if the agreement is “don’t do this or we kill you/break your toys”.
If by ‘success’, you mean ‘war doesn’t begin today’, diplomacy will indeed succeed… today. And diplomacy will continue to ‘succeed’ until Iran’s power grows, and with it its belligerancy, until it begins doing acts that can’t be diplo-fied away. Which would have to be pretty horrific for us to ignore their nuke-shield.
And *THAT* is a diplomatic failure… generated by diplomatic success. In exactly the same manner that diplomacy with Hitler was a wonderful success until the first country was invaded, and actually continued to ‘succeed’ until the second one.
When will we learn that idiots who talk of slaughtering others because they have different ethnicities and/or religions are sometimes SERIOUS?
stickler
Mr. Waxx has apparently delved deep into the scholarship of diplomatic history. Pity he stopped reading when he got to 1945. The fear of another Munich moment helped bring us such shining diplomatic successes as the creation of South Vietnam in 1955, and then the military intervention in 1964 to prop up that regime. And then the deaths of 58,000 Americans because we didn’t want to negotiate with Ho Chi Minh, because he might be Just Like Hitler!(tm).
Oh, why bother. Look, Mr. Waxx, answer my question above. What do you really suppose the United States can do at this point to stop Iran from building a bomb? Aside from diplomacy, what options do we realistically have?
Remember, in your response, to explain how that course of action won’t result in a) a general Shi’ite rising in the south of Iraq, or b) the Iranians shutting down the Straits of Hormuz.
ppGaz
Well stated. Also, let’s not forget that great moment in anti-diplomacy, “Peace With Honor.” I figure that little ditty is worth 20k names on the Wall.
Ryan Waxx
And in your version, the earth was created in the ’60’s.
If you are implying that the world feared Vietnam taking over Europe, that is laughable. If you are implying that their SPONSERS were feared, then you are right. What’s more, those fears proved justified… unless you are going to claim that the Soviet Union was run by peace-loving hippies, Stalin and his successors were swell choices to have take over Europe (and of course they never planned to try), and that there wasn’t an orgy of slaughter once we left South Vietnam.
Here is a HINT: Diplomacy wouldn’t have prevented South Vietnam from being taken over, either… although diplomacy may have prevented South Vietnam from surviving. Or have you convienently forgotten the end-of-war arms embargo? Arms embargoes are diplomacy too. Diplomats murdered South Vietnam. Some success, huh buddy?
There are no realistic options besides diplomacy at this time. Which is partly the fault of well-funded anti-war yahoos, since they’ve made it plain that they will strongly oppose anything EXCEPT diplomacy… which also cripples said diplomacy because Iran knows we don’t have other options but to talk firmly and disapprovingly at them. And they don’t fear words or censure.
Good Job!
Ray
ppGaz
This quote here is proof your a big POS. Take a hike you useless (insert expletive here).
ppGaz
Well argued!
You win.
Ryan Waxx
Ah, yes… “peace with honor”. Lets remember the highlights of that speech, shall we?
The last of our few remaining forces evacuated just ahead of the invading North Vietnamese Army.
They were thowing helecopters off of carriers to make room for the refugees in the end. Reciprocity, indeed… but not in the way Nixon meant.
‘Other Major Powers’ means the Soviets. Who stopped shipping arms the very moment Nixon moved their hearts with his diplomacy. No, really. Why are you laughing at that statement? Stop laughing! Stop!
The peace that comes when one side of the war is utterly defeated. The peace of the dead.
No, no, and no. I hope you are keeping score.
The results speak for themselves.
…Diplomacy should be a four-letter word.
demimondian
Earr Waxx writes:
You mean, like “wise”?
Ryan Waxx
‘wiseguy’ is seven letters, demimondian.
Ray
ppGaz and Scurvy
Since Mr Cole has made the big time with PJ Media I might have to make myself a regular here so I’d have some place to take a crap on lib. Thanks for sharing your drivel.
demimondian
Quite so, and “ill-informed” has even more than that. (I’d tell you how many, but I’m laughing quietly to myself at the thought of Ray trying to count to eleven.)
But you’re right, Waxxmann: I’m a wiseguy. Being a wiseguy, however, does not have much to do with diplomacy. That has to do with wisdom.
ppGaz
Oh dear, how fecal of you.
Ray
demimondian
And you are in such a ’tis because I use a real name? Bow down to me before you open ye mouth.
Scurvy I see you up there. Uhhhhh. Uhhhhh. Plop.
TallDave
Negotiations with non-consensual governments are rarely productive. Just ask Neville Chamberlain.
“Now let’s all go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”
jobiuspublius
What ever happened to Libya, or Cuba? Is the USSR still around?
Ray
Hey ppGAz you remember this one:
http://www.projectnothing.com/2005/06/28/bushs-big-speech
ppGaz
Yes, I generally remember what I write.
What about it?
Ray
ppGaz
Sort of bites in you the ass don’t it? (here comes dimmi with a lecture on it now).
ppGaz
Nope. My position has not changed.
Tim F
Funny, I was just thinking that we needed another excitable dimwit to tie up threads in pointless flame wars. If Ray hadn’t arrived we would have had to put out a classified ad or something.
demimondian
Yeah, we do kind of use them up, don’t we? Still, Ray’s a special class — a genuine psychopath. We haven’t gotten a lot of those.
I didn’t see any comments from you about negotiating with Iran, Tim F. Do you think it’s pointless?
Ray
Demi
Really I’m a psycopath? Right. Well we won’t be having you to negotiate with Iran now will we? And now after a comment like that and Timnobody I’ll be sticking around for awhile. Will all get to know each other real well.
Nice try with the passive aggressive crap Dimi but no ceegar toots.
demimondian
Yup, dude, you are. It’s pretty clear.
More than that, though — you’re a stupid psychopath. A smart sociopath would have done some research about just how anonymous the internet is, and would never, ever have threatened someone unless his IP address couldn’t be tracked.
CaseyL
The “anti-war left” is not responsible for the fuck-up in Iraq.
It wasn’t the “anti-war left” that was in such a goddamn hurry to invade Iraq that a half-assed case for war was presented to the UN, undermining US credibility from the start
It wasn’t the “anti-war left” that was in such a goddamn hurry to invade Iraq that not enough soldiers were sent.
It wasn’t the “anti-war” left that had no plan for the occupation.
It wasn’t the “anti-war left” that sent soldiers to Iraq without enough equipment and armor.
It wasn’t the “anti-war left” that tortured and murdered prisoners of war, failed to protect Iraq’s treasures and infrastructure, and razed entire cities in a failed anti-insurgent strategy.
It isn’t the “anti-war left” that has most Americans deciding the war was based on falsehoods, was a mistake, has not made the country or the world safer, and probably isn’t winnable.
The reason most Americans have decided the war was based on falsehoods, was a mistake, has not made the country or the world safer, and probably isn’t winnable is because most Americans can see with their own eyes that the war was based on falsehoods, was a mistake, has not made the country or the world safer, and probably isn’t winnable.
I’m not saying most Americans are smart. 51% of them voted for Bush last November. They knew what they were voting for – a massively corrupt and lethally incompetent Administration – and they voted for it because they were scared stupid.
But, scared stupid though that 51% was, they’re not so scared stupid that they can’t see the truth once they’re hit over the head with it a dozen or so times.
And that puts them way ahead of the dimwits here who not only still think the war in Iraq is going just fine, thanks, but who also think military action against Iran is feasible and desirable.
ppGaz
The hell you [ bonk! ] say!
[ bonk! ]
stickler
I realize there was a massive outbreak of stupid here while I was tucking into a nice pork chop with mole sauce.
But is it possible that Mr. Waxx doesn’t actually know that South Vietnam was something the Eisenhower Administration helped to create?
Is it possible that Mr. Waxx is just a benighted high-school junior who hasn’t taken Social Studies yet?
If so, he’s of draft age. And he might just get a real-world tutoring in World Geopolitics 101. Especially if we bomb Iran and the Middle East oil fields go up in flames. Someone will have to be drafted to fight the “savage wars of peace” then.
Veeshir
You people patting yourselves on the back for “going through” wingnuts makes me laugh.
The comments section has become so much concentrated stupidity that it’s just no fun anymore. I click on it intending to post but the concentrated stupidity in the comments makes me change my mind.
In order to talk to you I have to weed my way through all the things that you believe that just aren’t so, as we’re seeing in the “concentrated stupidity” thread. You people are actually attacking John for calling Reverand Al, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader etc. stupid. I mean, that’s even more concentrated stupidity.
Why bother? I just read the comments and laugh at you. I have to respect Talldave for trying, but I figure he just does it to keep his skills sharp. You people are far too partisan to care what’s right, you only care about your side winning. Again, I use that “concentrated stupidity” as proof. You are defending George Galloway and Lynne Stewart! I mean, how much partisan hackery is too much?
I eagerly await all the commenters who misrepresent what I’ve said here as some paean to Bush or war or some other equally stupid remarks because many of you have absolutely no reading comprehension skills.
That’s why I’ve stopped commenting here, it’s just not much fun anymore.
ppGaz
Gee, you call a bunch of people stupid, call them hacks, tell them they can’t read, and then they refuse to pat you on the back?
Jesus weeps for you, sir. Oh, the inanity! The pain, the suffering you endure!
You poor, poor man. It is just too sad to speak of any more. My heart is heavy. I hope you find succor.
Veeshir
See, that’s exactly my point. Note that you totally screwed up the order of events. First, came then they refuse to pat you on the back then came, call them hacks, tell them they can’t read. And I never said that I wanted you to pat me on the back, I said that I was sick of all the delibate, partisan hackery. Reading comprehension is your friend.
I exactly explained my point and you came in a deliberately misunderstood me. Thank you for the object lesson.
Also, I didn’t call you stupid, I said that things were “concentrated stupidity”. Once again, reading comprehension is your friend. Intelligent people can say stupid things. I would suggest that the stupidity that I’m talking about comes from willful ignorance and not from idiocy. Even if it is pretty hard to tell the difference sometimes.
ppGaz
Well, then you are a liar, because your post was 100% partisan bullshit.
If you want a better discussion, then start and lead one. I don’t think you can, but you are more than welcome to prove me wrong.
Ray
demimondian
What in your stupid little brain are you talking about? Go read all my comments and tell me where oh where did I hurt your damn feelings sunshine? Take a hike looser. You couldn’t win with logic so now you are going to try intimidation? Exactly that’s how you hard core lefty’s do “it” it’s obvious to everyone.
And if I’m not mistaken Mr ppGAZ was the first one to bring up target practice with “paintball” on me. So who the “frack” are you defending and going on about IP addresses, I don’t give a crap about an IP yadda yaddda but you must certainly be worried. Or do you jump around form terminal to terminal there at the campus?
skip
On what basis could we act unilaterally? Out of a detirmination to keep nukes out of the middle east perhaps. In which case we must take out Dimona as well.
And before you argue the Sharonista wouldn’t use use theirs, review what almost happened in the Yom Kippur war.
Veeshir
Which part of my post was partisan hackery? C’mon, which specific sentence was partisan? The only part I can see is my saying that those people are indeed concentrated stupidity. Ralph Nader? Jsssica Lange? George Galloway? Calling them concetrated stupidity is actually being nice to those people. Saying the comments here are concentrated stupidity isn’t partisan, it’s mere observation coupled with insult. That’s not partisan. Defending Cynthia McKinney as not-concentrated-stupidity is partisan hackery.
As for this,If you want a better discussion, then start and lead one.
The point of my first comment was that that was impossible. Do you even read what anybody else writes? Or do you just have responses ready and you plug them in randomly?
ppGaz
Okay, whatever you say, dude.
Like I said, if you want better discussion, start it and lead it. My bet is that you couldn’t carry on a conversation with a mirror without punching yourself in the nose within ten minutes. But hey, as I said, prove me wrong.
Veeshir
Nice point avoidance.
As for your “punch” comment, where have I been angry here? I’ve merely pointed out what’s happening. No name calling, no excessive rudeness.
Perhaps you should actually read what I’ve written and respond to my points instead of misrepresenting them.
But then, it looks easier your way.