After 27 years, the United states and Iran are-gasp!- talking. Without a doubt, there have been back channel negotiations over the years on issues of mutual benefit, but now the talks are slowly emerging from the shadow world.
Al Jazeera's English edition web site has this story buried on their cover page (Of course it leads with the latest Israeli attacks on Hamas as well as a story that the United States plans a missile shield with Israel
US plans Israel missile shield
Israel already used US-made Patriot missiles to defend against missile attacks [GALLO-GETTY]
The US House of Representatives has adopted a measure aimed at weaving closer US and Israeli defences against ballistic missiles of the type that could be fired by Iran.
The measure, part of a $504 billion defence spending bill passed on Thursday, would redirect $205m in defence department funds toward projects already underway in Israel.
It would provide $25m more for Arrow missile co-production and integration, $45m for a US-Israeli short-range missile defence system dubbed "David's Sling" and $135m to buy a Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, fire unit.
All three projects involve interceptors rockets designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of their flight paths.
I can't for the life of me think that this is a BAD thing!
Stratfor is a website that does "analysis" of the world's hot spots. Here is a recent Stratfor paper on US-Iranian talks. I disagree with the Stratfor assessment that the Iranians prefer to deal now with a weakened President Bush. I think they know they could get the best deal possible from the perpetually weak-kneed Democrats, who are almost sure to come into the White House in '08. No, what I think the Iranians have in mind are those US aircraft carriers that currently are in the neighborhood with the capacity to destroy the nascent Iranian nuclear bomb. And they know that GWB is fully capable of using US airpower while telling the world to go to hell, which it well might. Sort of like what Menachem Begin did when he ordered the IDF to destroy that Iraqi reactor at Osirak. Israel was publicly scourged for its action , but behind closed giverment office doors in various parts of the world collective sighs of relief were exhaled.
I think the Iranians are playing a game: keep things under a medium heat for Bush in Iraq and give the appearance of "almost cooperating" in that theatre and "almost talking", thereby preventing the US from pressing the issue in the United Nations to take strong action against the Iranian nuclear program which every day grows more capable of producing a nuclear weapon. Mao-Tse-Tung said it a long time ago, "Talk, Talk, Fight, Fight"
I like to check out this website, which purports to contain blogs by Iranians both inside and outside that country. I do not doubt that some are by private citizens. On the other hand, I have no doubt that some are placed by the government as disinformation, as well as by anti-government people. Read some of these blogs, take a guess, reach out and see if anyone responds.
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Here is the Stratfor piece
Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report - May 16, 2007
The United States, Iran and the Iraq Negotiation Process
By George Friedman and Reva Bhalla
At long last, the United States and Iran announced May 13 that they
will engage in direct public bilateral talks over Iraq. From
Washington, it was the office of Vice President Dick Cheney and the
National Security Council that broke the news. From Tehran,
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirmed that the two sides will
meet in Baghdad in a few weeks, most likely at the ambassadorial
level. That makes these talks as officially sanctioned as they can
be.
Already there have been two brief public meetings -- albeit on the
sidelines of two international conferences -- between senior
officials from the Iranian Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State
Department in March in Baghdad and in May in Sharm el-Sheikh ,
Egypt. The upcoming meeting in Baghdad, however, will be the first
official bilateral meeting. After months of intense back-channel
discussions, both sides have made a critical decision to bring
their private negotiations into the public sphere, which means
Tehran and Washington must have reached some consensus on the
general framework of the negotiations on how to stabilize Iraq.
Why Now?
The U.S. political situation illustrates why both sides are willing
to come to the table right now. Both Iran and the United States are
closely eyeing each other's busted flushes , and they understand
that time is not on their respective sides.
From the U.S. perspective, it is no secret the Iraq war has soaked
up an enormous amount of U.S. military bandwidth. With the 2008
presidential election fast approaching, the Bush administration is
left with little time to put a plan in action that would
demonstrate some progress toward stabilizing Iraq. It has also
become painfully obvious that U.S. military force alone will not
succeed in suppressing Sunni insurgents and the Shiite militias
enough to allow the government in Baghdad to function -- and for
Washington to develop a real exit strategy. But by defiantly
sending more troops to Iraq against all odds, Bush is sending a
clear signal to Iran that it is not in the Iranians' interest to
wait out this administration, and that the United States is
prepared to use its forces to block Iranian aspirations to dominate
Iraq.
From the Iranian perspective, Tehran knows it is dealing with a
weak U.S. president right now, and that the next U.S. president
probably will have much greater freedom of action than Bush
currently does. The Iranians learned that dealing with former U.S.
President Jimmy Carter would have been preferable to dealing with
his successor. If you know negotiations are inevitable, it is
better to negotiate with the weak outgoing president than try to
extract concessions from a strong president during an increasingly
complicated situation. The Iranians also know that the intensely
fractious nature of Iraq's Shiite bloc -- which Iran depends on to
project its power -- makes it all the more difficult for Tehran to
consolidate its gains the longer Iraq remains in chaos.
U.S. and Iranian Demands
And so the time has come for both Iran and the United States to
show their cards by laying out their demands for public viewing.
U.S. demands for Iraq are fairly straightforward. Our understanding
of what Washington wants from Tehran regarding Iraq rests on these
key points:
1. The United States wants Iraq to be a unified and independent
state. In other words, Washington knows a pro-U.S. regime in
Baghdad is impossible at this point, but Washington is not going to
permit an Iranian-dominated state either.
2. The United States does not want jihadists operating in Iraq.
3. The United States wants to be able to withdraw from security
operations, but not precipitously, thereby allaying Sunni Arab
states' concerns .
Essentially, the United States is looking to create an Iraqi
government that, while dominated by the Shia, remains neutral to
Iran, hostile to jihadists and accommodating to mainstream Sunnis.
Iranian Demands
Iran's answers to these demands were publicly outlined in a paper
at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit. The Saudi-owned, U.K.-based daily
newspaper Al Hayat established the details of this paper in a May 5
article. The key points made in the presentation include the
following:
1. Iran does not want an abrupt withdrawal of coalition forces from
Iraq for fear this would lead to reshuffling the cards and
redistributing power. Instead, there should be a fixed timetable
for the withdrawal of U.S. and British forces from Iraqi cities and
relocation at bases and camps inside Iraq, provided the Iraqi
forces have reached the point at which they can provide security.
The Iranians also stated that they would extend all possible
assistance so that foreign forces could exit "honorably" from Iraq.
The U.S. decision to surge more troops into Iraq forced Iran to
think twice about placing its bets on a complete U.S. withdrawal.
An abrupt withdrawal without a negotiated settlement leaves more
problems than Tehran can manage in terms of containing Iraq's
Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions, and Iran does not want to be
left to pick up the pieces in a country that is already on the
verge of shattering along sectarian lines.
It is important to note that Iran is not calling for a complete
withdrawal from Iraq, and actually acknowledges that U.S. forces
will be relocated at bases and camps inside the country. Though
this acts as a blocker to Iranian ambitions, the presence of U.S.
bases also provides Iran with a stabilizing force placating the
Sunnis and Kurds. Moreover, the Iranians are sending assurances to
the United States that they are willing to cooperate so the Iraq
withdrawal does not look like another Vietnam scenario for the U.S.
administration to deal with at home.
2. Iran is "strongly opposed to all attempts to partition Iraq or
impose a federal system that allows for regional autonomy." No
region should be allowed to monopolize the resources in its
territory and deprive other regions of the revenues from these
resources.
Iran is essentially saying that Tehran and Washington have a common
desire to see a unified Iraq. The U.S. insistence on a unified Iraq
takes into account Sunni concerns of being left with the largely
oil-barren central region of the country. Iran is signaling that it
is not interested in seeing Iraq get split up, even if such a
scenario leaves Tehran with the second-best option of securing
influence in a Shiite-dominated, oil-rich southern autonomous zone.
3. Iran wants a plan, involving the Kurds and Sunnis, drawn up to
root out the transnational jihadist forces allied with al Qaeda in
Iraq. Sunni tribes should also assume the responsibility of
confronting jihadists, whether they are Iraqi citizens or are from
other Arab and Muslim countries.
In this demand, Iran and the United States share a common goal. The
jihadists will use every attempt to sow sectarian strife in Iraq to
prevent a political resolution from developing. The United States
does not want to provide al Qaeda with a fertile base of
operations, and Iran does not want its ideological nemesis gaining
ground next door and working against Shiite interests.
4. Iran clearly states that the negotiations over Iraq cannot be
separated from other regional issues and Tehran's nuclear file.
Stratfor has extensively discussed the nexus between Iran's nuclear
agenda and its blueprint for Iraq. Iran is trying to link the
nuclear issue to its dealings with the United States on Iraq as a
sort of insurance policy . Iran does not want to reach an
agreement on Iraq and then leave the nuclear issue to be dealt with
down the road, when the United States is in a stronger position to
take action against Tehran.
Iran basically is looking for a deal allowing it voluntarily to
agree to freeze uranium enrichment in exchange for political
concessions over Iraq, but without it having to dismantle its
program. That would leave enough room to skirt sanctions and
preserve the nuclear program for its long-term interests.
Washington is not exactly amenable to this idea, which is what
makes this a major sticking point. The United States already has
made it clear that it is leaving the nuclear issue out of the Iraq
discussions.
5. Iran wants a new regional formula that would make Iraq a region
of influence for Tehran.
While it does not appear that Iran explicitly stated this in its
presentation, a majority of participants at the conference got the
message. Washington cannot afford to allow Iraq to develop into an
Iranian satellite, but it is looking for assurances from Iran that
a U.S. withdrawal will leave in place a neutral, albeit
Shiite-dominated, government in Iraq.
Iranian Offers
The Iranian paper outlined several key concessions it would offer
the United States and Iraq's Sunni faction if its demands were met.
1. Iran would help the Iraqi government rein in the armed Shiite
militias and incorporate them into the state security apparatus.
2. The de-Baathification law can be revised to allow for the
rehiring of former Iraqi army personnel, the bulk of whom are tied
to the Sunni nationalist insurgency. However, Iran wants assurances
that former Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and other
former Baathists will not be allowed to hold the position of prime
minister when the time comes to replace current Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki.
3. Iran would be willing to see fresh parliamentary elections, the
formation of a new Cabinet and the amendment of the Iraqi
Constitution to double the Sunni seats in parliament to 40
percent, with the Shia retaining 60 percent. Tehran has said
nothing about what would be left for Kurdish political
representation, however.
4. Iran has proposed the "fair" distribution of oil revenues in
Iraq to satisfy all parties, especially those in "central Iraq,"
the Sunni-dominated, oil-deprived heart of the country.
Tehran's offers illustrate the Iranians' open acknowledgment that
they are not going to be able to have their cake and eat it too.
Instead, they are going to have to guarantee Iraqi neutrality by
giving the Sunnis a much larger slice, leaving the Kurds to get
screwed yet again.
Back in Washington, the Bush administration is looking at the
Iranian withdrawal plan skeptically. Right now, the United States
wants assurances that a withdrawal plan worked out with the
Iranians does not simply leave a longer-term opportunity for Iran
to gradually take control of Iraq once the major roadblocks are out
of the way. In other words, the United States needs guarantees
that, as it draws down its troop presence, the Iranians will not
simply walk in. The Iranian proposal to expand Sunni representation
is a direct response to these concerns, provided the relevant
parties can actually deliver on their promises.
This is still highly questionable, though significant developments
are already taking place that reveal the United States, Iran and
various Iraqi players are making concrete moves to uphold their
sides of the bargain. With Iran's blessing, the Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) has announced it will undergo a
process of "Iraqization" -- a largely symbolic demonstration that
SCIRI will not operate simply as an Iranian proxy. Meanwhile, the
Sunni tribes and clans in Anbar province are increasingly
broadcasting their commitment and progress in combating
transnational jihadists. And finally, numerous reports in the Arab
media suggest the United States would be willing to heed the
Iranian demand that the Iraqi military not have offensive
capabilities allowing it to threaten its Persian neighbor.
The negotiations are moving, and it is becoming more and more
apparent that a consensus is emerging between Tehran and Washington
over how the Iraq project should turn out. With enough serious
arrestors in play for this deal to fall through, it is now up to
all players -- whether those players call Washington, Tehran,
Riyadh or Baghdad home -- finally to put their money where their
mouths are.
So much for Stratfor.
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