U.S. – Iran Talks – Moon of Alabama

June 1, 2006

U.S. – Iran Talks

As condition to start negotiations about a stop of Iran’s Uranium enrichment program, Secretary of State Rice demanded a stop of Iran’s Uranium enrichment program.

Bush found similar words.

"Our message to the Iranians is that, one, you won’t have a weapon, and two, that you must verifiably suspend any programs, at which point we will come to the negotiating table to work on a way forward," Mr. Bush said at the White House.

The Uranium program is in a sorry state anyhow. So the Iranians may well be ready to stop it for a while to do some more research on centrifuges without any Uranium hexafluorid near them. It would not hurt them in any material way. But they need to keep their face too and will not stop it just because some empty bluster by Bush.

So this opening of negotiations about negotiations will take a while.

The whole move on the U.S. side could just be a ploy to get the Russians and the Chinese to agree on a sanction menue. But this is unlikely to achieve that, if only because it is too simple. For the same reason it does not even set Iran in a bad light if it would refuse negotiations at all, which it will not. The absurdity of Rice’s condition is just too obvious.

Sanctions could be effective though and they would have serious consequences in Iran. For lack of refineries, the country imports 40% of the gazoline and diesel it needs. Taking that away would gurantee for serious hardship and a longterm plan could be to keep Iran under sanctions for the next 10 years until the next republican president can finish them off in a three weeks campaign. Throw in some limited bombing and, as you will remember, you end at the same scheme that did worked well on Iraq.

But China and Russia know this too. I have no reason to believe that they would ever agree on something that would seriously hurt Iran. What has Iran done to them (or to anybody else) that would give them reason to do so?

For now I assume there is something else behind Bush’s flip-flop. The military option Cheney and Bolton are pushing is just no real alternative. The Generals will have made that clear. The U.S. recently had to reenforce its troops in Iran and Afghanistan. And in both countries Iran has them by the balls and can squeeze whenever it likes to.

So for now it is time for talks and some diplomatic chessplay. The opening gave Iran some advantages. Let’s see if they can build on that.

Posted by b on June 1, 2006 at 17:56 UTC | Permalink

Comments

you must verifiably suspend any programs, at which point we will come to the negotiating table to work on a way forward.
Isn’t verifiable suspension the goal – not a precursor? If the Iranians agree to suspension, what more is there to talk about?
Even from a neo-con point of view, Rice’s position makes no sense, because it allows Iran to play for time while both sides continue to talk about talking.
The Iranians can read a calendar as well as anyone else. They know they just have to make it through October, because after the mid terms, Bush, the lamest of ducks, is far less likely to take a quack at them.
If the Chicken Hawks were smart (heh), they would have sat down much earlier and put up a front of good faith negotiations. Then when the talks ultimately failed (of course), Rice could argue that at least they tried and now it was past time for sanctions – or worse.
Rice’s preferred course, however, is a throwback to the old Cold War tactics that both the US and the Soviets use to pull on each other during the SALT talks. One side would want to talk about limiting nukes, and the other would agree to talk about talking about limiting nukes, but only if the other side first agreed to limits.
Needless to say, this nuclear kabuki dance caused the SALT talks to drag on for years before anything concrete got accomplished, but that was alright because both sides knew the other guy wasn’t going anywhere and they had all the time in the world to posture.
Unlike the SALT talks however, time is of the essence in this nuke scenario, and delay merely plays into the hands of the Iranians.
Still, Rice continues to play the old stall game because its the only one she ever learned and old habits die hard for old Sovietologists.
Clueless, incompetent, and self-defeating. Sound familiar?

Posted by: Night Owl | Jun 1 2006 20:00 utc | 1

The probabilities are high that this is just a Bolton-Rice end run around the Russians and Chinese, without any real expectation that Iran will start talking.
For starters, it seems designed to give offence to Iran’s leaders: My way or the highway, Bush is saying. It smacks of bullying rather than negotiating.
Why make it a condition TO THE START OF TALKS that they suspend enrichment? Bush could easily have said: Let’s start talking, and talk for an agreed period (3 months?). If we reach agreement on main principles, you will then suspend enrichment in a verifiable way while we complete our negotiations …
I wonder if the verifiable condition has any link to the fact that elections take place in November?
Just a thought …

Posted by: CuriosityKilledTheCat | Jun 1 2006 20:12 utc | 2

Can Iran respond with another pre-condition?
Get your floating airbases “USS Ronald Reagan” for starters, out of the Persian Gulf?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 1 2006 20:39 utc | 3

There is no reason to suppose that Dr Rice was talking to the Iranians, Europeans or Chinese when she made this no-option option announcement, because all of the above greeted it with the scepticism she must have anticipated.
She was talking to US voters. Confidential polls and focus groups must have told her camp that group wasn’t buying the same old, same old anymore either.
In fact her initial press releases in the US were moderately suceessful in that they weren’t treated with the disparaging questioning of her motives that non-US coverage gave right from the inception.
That came later though. Her statements won’t do anything to help resolve this issue that shouldn’t be an issue. But that is unlikely to be her intent.
However in the longer term, the approach will at least provide an out for a bluff by this administration which has been called correctly by the Iranian leadership.
The Chinese and Russians will not agree to any resolution that could be used as a means to punish Iran in the future. This administration no longer has any credibility with those countries’ negotiators.
During the same stage of negotiations on Iraq, the US side made a lot of assurances to other security council ‘partners’ that the resolution would never actually be used to attack Iraq. That they only wanted it, to let Saddam know they were serious.
As sceptical as the other security Council members may have been they had no choice but to go along. Anything else would have been tantamount to calling a nation a liar. When we consider up until that point everyone had been striving to get along with each other in the New World Order, the US could have rightly insisted that the sceptics were guilty of ‘old’ mindset.
But a stunt like that is a ‘oncer’ for which the US will pay for in the years to come.
The US was no sooner out of the meetings than they reneged on their word. Some may remember how gobsmacked the brits were right then, although the same cannot be said for the Bliar, but he’s a special case as his eagerness to subject his citizens to Egyptian torture attests.
Maybe that is why the Bliar has had to change Foreign Secretaries almost as frequently as his drawers. It must be somewhat embarassing for the US side to have to go back to someone they have already given a solemn undertaking to and broken, just to insist that they will not renege on this solemn undertaking.
But aside from that digression, Dr Rice herself will be looking far beyond November 2006, which her confidantes must have told her is a lost cause. The best the rethugs can hope for is to limit the hemorrhaging and even that may not play into Dr Rice’s hand.
If she can go into 08 with the claim that she has successfully steered away from the brink without actually surrendering the US’s future ‘right to hammer the rug sellers’, she will have negated Ms Clinton on a huge chunk of foreign policy. The Clint cannot keep the zionists onside by offering a more ‘liberal’ proposal and she can’t keep the liberals on side by offering a more zionist one.
That leaves the battleground where the public and Dr Rice feel most comfortable, on a domestic agenda, where demopublicans are united in their division.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 1 2006 21:51 utc | 4

Bush flip-flopped in 8/02 by going to the UN – at Powell’s urging and over the Cheney cabal’s objections. The US still invaded Iraq. There may be no more than this to the current flip-flop: project the appearance of diplomacy. These people not only don’t do nuance, they can’t.
I also don’t believe 11/06 matters. When you think you are a unitary executive during wartime, you don’t think you are ever a lame duck. Even an impeached Clinton was able to launch Kosovo in 1999. The only relevance the upcoming elections might have depends on whether Rove believes a pre-election strike would help or hurt Rethugs at the polls.
China and Russia are clued in and will not help the US. China knows that the moves against Iraq/Iran are also moves against them. They need the oil and Iran along with Russia are their best possible sources. Russia has oil to export, so has diplomatic leverage that US foreign policy elites want to be able to counter with oil supplies they control.
Troubling in all this to me is the constant drumbeat for “action” against Iran by right wing think tanks and AIPAC accompanied by the enthusiastic harmonies provided of the DLC’s Amen Chorus. The surface noise is all antagonistic while the background hum seems like wishful common sense (They wouldn’t really do this, would they?) While there are ominous rumblings from the likes of Murtha (speaking for many in the military) and others, there are no voices in power positions urging restraint as strongly as the voices pushing for action. (AIPAC’s triumph?)
Re-making the ME (i.e., grabbing oil and gas reserves for US oligarchs) was the prime foreign policy objective of the Cheney administration. Retreat from regime change in Tehran would be tacit admission that they had failed in that objective, regardless of any face saving concessions they receive from negotiations. Will the people who believe they make their own reality concede defeat to one they didn’t make? Even Lee, against good advice from his subordinates, rolled the dice and threw an entire division across an open field in an attempt to win something he had already lost – and he was a brilliant commander. These guys are assholes. I’m still hoping for the best, but…..

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 2 2006 1:06 utc | 5

So, Iran has the oil/gas & is dealing w/China. xUS has the military – or, what’s left of it…
So, this is rather like a homebuyer saying to the seller – okay, l want to negotiate buying you’re house. But the price is non-negotiable. I’m giving you $x!!
Obvious horseshit…
But as I & others around the bar have been saying for ages, if they’re going to attack Iran, they first have to stage another 911…
I don’t mean to give anyone indigestion – so don’t read this if you’ve eaten recently, but Ray McGovern concurs.
McGovern lambasted Bush’s inner circle as uniformly lacking any real military experience and characterized them as a cabal already hell-bent on war.
McGovern entertained the notion that western governments and intelligence hierarchies could potentially stage terror attacks in Europe and the US either before or after an invasion of Iran.
“That’s altogether possible,” said McGovern.
“I would say even probable because they need some proximate cause, some casus belli to justify really unleashing things on Iran….I would put very little past this crew – their record of dissembling and disingenuousness is unparalleled.”
McGovern said that Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld, fearing impeachment and Enron-style criminal proceedings, are urging President Bush to launch a war in order to create a climate unconducive to lengthy investigations and impeachment proceedings.
Asked to cite specifically when we should expect to see an attack launched, McGovern said, “I think we all agree that an attack is likely before the election and we all agree that it has to do largely with the election – as for timing I see a likelihood that it could come as early as late June or early July, most of my colleagues predict August, September, maybe an October surprise even.link

Posted by: jj | Jun 2 2006 2:37 utc | 6

Two questions for Barflies:
1) Any hope for Kissinger cabal – Scowcroft, Brzez. et al – to work w/remnant sane members of “security” apparatus – Military, Secret Service, Mil. Intel/CIA/DIA etc. – to bring about a coup to forestall this?
2) Anyone agree w/me that principle reason for all this state intervention equipment being installed on Telecom systems is to give them ability to shut down the Internet to civilians if/when they pull this off? “For national security” or claim there was a “web attack”….
Where the bloody hell is the antiwar apparatus? How can everyone not be speaking out NOW? Apparently Chris Matthews said on his show last night that he imagines waking up one day & they’ve attacked Iran.

Posted by: jj | Jun 2 2006 2:43 utc | 7

jj
The Bushies don’t need to shut down the Internet, they have enough misinformation propaganda sources to manipulate U.S. public opinion, at least enough for airstrikes some time in the future. Openly putting boots on the ground probably looks like a lost cause without some 911 type occurrence.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jun 2 2006 3:44 utc | 8

Bolton: ‘This is Put Up or Shut Up Time For Iran,’ Unilateral Military Action Is ‘On The Table’
Yesterday on Fox’s Your World with Neil Cuvuto, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton explicitly said that unilateral military action against Iran was “on the table.” Bolton diplomatically added, “This is put up or shut up time for Iran.”

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jun 2 2006 4:05 utc | 9

Apparently Chris Matthews said on his show last night that he imagines waking up one day & they’ve attacked Iran

Posted by: annie | Jun 2 2006 4:10 utc | 10

argh. sorry, i’m rusty

Posted by: annie | Jun 2 2006 4:11 utc | 11

I agree with jj. Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co were outflanked – blindsided – on the internet in the information war. Information dominance means controlling all the info sources, megaphones. For them, too much of the truth about Iraq (and other fascist initiatives) got out via internet sources, some of which then found it’s way into the MSM. In other words, the anti-war crowd found their voices on the internet and too many people heard them. Shutting those voices up is necessary to establish and maintain a police state. Can’t source it now, but there were work groups formed a few years ago to identify how the govt could control the internet and they did come up with a plan. I’m not sure everything is in place yet, but I have no doubt it will be eventually. Then all they will need is an excuse (yet another Pearl Harbor?) to implement it. And it will stay implemented. These people are not bluffing.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Jun 2 2006 4:11 utc | 12

@Annie – on Randi Rhodes. She said he said it twice, then went on to drivel about the Clinton marriage – a safer topic. She didn’t ask her producer for the tape of it in advance, so she may play that tomorrow.

Posted by: jj | Jun 2 2006 4:12 utc | 13

Blix Says U.S. Impedes Efforts to Curb A-Arms

Hans Blix, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector, said today that American unwillingness to cooperate in international arms agreements was undermining the effectiveness of efforts to curb nuclear weapons.
…
Mr. Blix, who left his arms inspection post in 2003 shortly after the invasion of Iraq, made his comments in the introduction to a 225-page report by a Swedish-financed international commission, delivered today to the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan.
The panel, with Mr. Blix as chairman and members from more than a dozen countries, listed 60 recommendations for nuclear disarmament.
It concluded that treaty-based disarmament was being set back by “an increased U.S. skepticism regarding the effectiveness of international institutions and instruments, coupled with a drive for freedom of action to maintain an absolute global superiority in weaponry and means of their delivery.”

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2006 4:50 utc | 14

Iran Rejects Conditions for Nuclear Talks

Iranian officials have uniformly rebuffed Washington’s offer of direct talks, saying they will never accept the condition that they first suspend all uranium enrichment, yet they cannot hide their satisfaction that the offer was made at all.
…
“The fact that Ms. Rice has announced the United States willingness to hold talks with Iran is more important than the conditions she set,” said Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst from Tehran who has close relations with people in the government.
…
In an interview, Javad Vaeidi, a member of Iran’s Supreme Security Council and deputy in charge of International Security, agreed that the United States overture was, in itself, a positive step similar to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s letter. But, he flatly rejected not just the content but, as important, the tone of the proposal. As Mr. Vaeidi defined the conflict, it was as much about earning respect for Iran as about developing nuclear power. It would be “humiliating,” he said to give up enrichment.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, responded in a similar fashion. “We won’t negotiate about the Iranian nation’s natural nuclear rights but we are prepared, within a defined, just framework and without any discrimination, to hold dialogue about common concerns,” Mr. Mottaki said today in comments broadcast on Iran radio.

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2006 4:52 utc | 15

Beards and BedSheets
“Our message to the Iranians is that, one, you won’t have a (nuclear) weapon, and two, that you must verifiably suspend any (nuclear) programs, at which point we will come to the negotiating table to work on a way forward,” Mr. Bush said at the White House.
The classic Arial Sharon teaser to Yasir Arafat,
and like Sharon, just a refusenik placater for what the Likud had already fully intended to do.
Like my spouse says, you have to be reasonable and do things my way! Compromise!! (smile)
Arafat was essentially powerless in a non-state.
Ahmadinejad has a large military in a large country with the lowest external debt of any nation on earth(!), some of the largest oil reserves, and lots of Sino-Soviet friends.
For Bush-Rice-Bolton to play the Sharon tease
on Ahmadinejad shows how utterly incompetent,
and reproachably arrogant, they are.
It’s likely they are just placating Israel into waiting to attack until an opportune time, which will arrive with a gilded UN-SC official notice.
Then Boeing can deliver their new winged mini- cluster-bomb with a 60-mile radius of delivery, in time for the pretext attack on Tehran:
“There are millions of terrorists in Mecca!!!
They’re all wearing beards and bed sheets,
calling for a Holy Sha’baan Laylatul-Baraat!!!”
“Gosh, sir, I don’t know how the Israeli’s war- planes managed to sneak across our full-spectrum dominant coverage of their flight path over Iraq without launching a single Patriot intercepter.
Must be just equipment malfunction, like 9/11.”
Here’s my prediction for the Iran attack D-Day:
15 Sha’baan (Laylatul Baraat), 8 September 2006
Shab e Bara’at, The Night of Fireworks
Fireworks on the eve of 9/11’s 5th-anniversary.
On this night Allah wraps up the books of the past year’s doings and exonerates his servants from those obligations. Hence this night is called Laylatul-Baraat, holy month of fasting.
Layla, ya’ got me on my knees!
“Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, comes to His Creation on Laylatun-Nisf (the 15th night) of Sha’baan, and He forgives all of His Creation, except the Polytheist and Bush House of Satan.”

Posted by: tante aime | Jun 2 2006 5:23 utc | 16

The WaPo sells it as Six Powers Reach Accord On Iran Plan but reading ar more detailed NYT account there isn´t much agreed on:
Package of Terms (No Sanctions Included) for Iran

The United States, Russia, China and three leading nations of Europe announced an agreement Thursday on a package of incentives intended to resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran, shelving any punitive action by the Security Council until Iran has time to respond to the proposals.
…
Britain’s new foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, read a statement on behalf of the six countries, saying: “We have agreed on a set of far-reaching proposals as a basis for discussions with Iran. We believe they offer Iran the chance to reach a negotiated agreement based on cooperation.”
…
The word “sanctions” was not uttered in the public dialogue on Thursday, perhaps in an effort to avoid giving Iran an obvious target for early objections. But should Iran reject the incentives, differences are likely to re-emerge among the six nations as they consider specific punishments in the Security Council.
…
Although all countries agreed to the initiative, the major gap was one that has been there since the beginning: the insistence by the United States and the Europeans that Iran must be punished by the Security Council if it does not change its behavior, and the counterargument by Russia and China that the best way to win concessions — at least at this point — is through engagement.
Although the Europeans had argued against holding such a high-level, high-profile meeting without closing the gaps in lower-level negotiating and guaranteeing success, the United States insisted that the meeting was important to underscore the gravity of the issue and to keep up the negotiating momentum.
The Americans are still resisting formulas giving Iran security guarantees that it would not be the target of a military attack. The Europeans say that without such assurances, Iran will proceed with the pursuit of a nuclear weapons program despite its longstanding denials that it has that intention.

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2006 5:34 utc | 17

Why is Europe going along, esp. after the swimming success of Afghanistan & Iraq? How could Wash have made it in their interest, or otherwise threatened them?

Posted by: jj | Jun 2 2006 5:43 utc | 18

The Guardian’s Jonathan Steele If Iran is ready to talk, the US must do so unconditionally

Ask anyone in Washington, London or Tel Aviv if they can cite any phrase uttered by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the chances are high they will say he wants Israel “wiped off the map”.
Again it is four short words, though the distortion is worse than in the Khrushchev case. The remarks are not out of context. They are wrong, pure and simple. Ahmadinejad never said them. Farsi speakers have pointed out that he was mistranslated. The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by Iran’s first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” just as the Shah’s regime in Iran had vanished.
He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The “page of time” phrase suggests he did not expect it to happen soon. There was no implication that either Khomeini, when he first made the statement, or Ahmadinejad, in repeating it, felt it was imminent, or that Iran would be involved in bringing it about.
But the propaganda damage was done, and western hawks bracket the Iranian president with Hitler as though he wants to exterminate Jews. At the recent annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful lobby group, huge screens switched between pictures of Ahmadinejad making the false “wiping off the map” statement and a ranting Hitler.
…
The EU3’s offer of carrots for Tehran was also meaningless without a US role. Europe cannot give Iran security guarantees. Tehran does not want non-aggression pacts with Europe. It wants them with the only state that is threatening it both with military attack and foreign-funded programmes for regime change.
The US compromise on talks with Iran is a step in the right direction, though Rice’s hasty statement was poorly drafted, repeatedly calling Iran both a “government” and a “regime”. But it is absurd to expect Iran to make concessions before sitting down with the Americans. Dialogue is in the interests of all parties. Europe’s leaders, as well as Russia and China, should come out clearly and tell the Americans so.

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2006 6:04 utc | 19

I realise it is impossible to be too pessimistic about what this mob is up to but I suspect that w’eve been locked down so long that some of us may not have noticed the atmospheric change.
Yep the only way that the war crims could turn Iraq into another field for their peverted endeavours would be if they ‘happened’ across another 9/11.
The question is whether they could successfully achieve another 9/11 scenario.
Even suspending disbelief for a moment and giving the BushCo/Leopold forces of darkness full credit for all of 9/11, rather than the more likely scenario of them just ‘letting it happen’ means that yes these crims are capable of extremely complex conspiracies without the hint of a cock-up something which is belied by everything since then BushCo/Leopold have attempted, but lets accept they did it once.
When they were considerably younger in terms of the ‘fresh eye’ they brought to the political machinery and the knowledge that others had of their ploys.
This is no longer the case so if they were to pull off another attack on Terra, they are going to have to put together an attack on US interests that the citizens will take so personally that it can blow the widely held knowledge of last 3 1/2 years of deception out the window, while not leaving BushCo open to the accusation that they ‘let it happen on their watch’ and implicates the Iranians to the point where US citizens can be sure that they indeed are the culprits and the same time as it creates the same sense of outrage and empathy in the rest of the world as 911 did.
And to achieve that nigh on impossible task they have to use operatives that have the confidence there will be no ‘blowback’, that the strategy is well conceived, and that the wheels won’t fall off partway thru, and who are totally professional, believe in the mission, and who have no traceable links to the BushCo/Leopold machine.
Now I’m not saying they wouldn’t attempt it without it meeting all those preconditions, but I am saying any likely ‘friends’ capable of achieving this for them are not likely to attempt it.
It is true to say that they will be able to find ‘friends’ prepared to do it that aren’t capable of successfully achieving an outcome but it is also true that Poppy and the other old-schoolers, indeed some of the new schoolers such as Jeb-boy will be on guard against that.
All the momentum in the world is against the BushCo/Leopold alliance.
Nothing is impossible; however setting themselves that task and effectively implementing it is as near to impossible as can be.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 2 2006 6:19 utc | 20

re: Hans Blix, I saw him speak at a Vancouver Institute session last year. He was focused and clear, perfect British-accent English as most educated Scandinavians are, and briefly discussed a series of issues that I was too ignorant to understand.
One topic was the pre-Bolton changes pending in the UN. He implied that the agencies need reform, except I believe he mentioned UNICEF (Children’s Emergency Fund) or UNESCO (Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as functional. He suggested that change was necessary but also that the US would force its own agenda upon the agency.
I had just finished (General, now Canadian Senator) Romeo Dallaire’s biographical account of his year in Rwanda, “Shake Hands With The Devil” so I was quite interested in the politics and policies of the United Nations — Dallaire claims he was hung out to dry by the UN, and information from this site tells me that is true, naming names of course. Rwanda is in the news today with a report released by the UN regarding national and corporate support for Paul Kagame’s coup and subsequent invasion of Congo for minerals.
Quite a high-level talk from Blix. I was sincerely impressed by his erudition, clarity and brevity. He took no questions after the talk, simply thanked the notables that were in attendance.
In retrospect I decided that he was a brilliant man, or had a brilliant speech-writer, and that I actually had no grasp of his points. This is complex stuff and he was actually detailing issues point-by-point for those in the know. Definitely a humbling experience for me, I thought he was going to tell stories or something, rather than simply giving factual information.
If you’ve ever seen him, he looks a bit like the pictures I’ve seen of Robert Fisk — a sunburned pale strawberry blonde.

Posted by: jonku | Jun 2 2006 6:31 utc | 21

OT tit for tat for Tweety. From the Wayne Madsen Report (I know, I know but what the hey…)
June 1, 2006 — Rocky shoals for Bush marriage? Informed sources Inside the Beltway report that First Lady Laura Bush has established temporary residence in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC as a result of a tiff with President Bush over an extramarital relationship involving her husband. Mr. Bush’s tryst is said to involve Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It is not known how long Mrs. Bush plans to remain at the Mayflower, however, her security detail has been present at the hotel during hours when the First Lady would normally be residing in the White House. While she was National Security Adviser, Rice, who has never been married, referred to George W. Bush as “my husband” before she corrected herself and said, “the president.” Rice was speaking at a dinner when she made her “husband” remarks.
WMR is tracking the Laura Bush story.

Posted by: moe99 | Jun 2 2006 7:13 utc | 22

Why is Europe going along, esp. after the swimming success of Afghanistan & Iraq? How could Wash have made it in their interest, or otherwise threatened them?
For the UK its obviously Blair who is driving things up to an attack on Iran. That`s why he fired Straw as foreign minister after Straw said “no attack”.
France and Germany are trying to hold the U.S. back and to save their trade with Iran. Especially Merkel did get an earfull from German business leaders and labour leaders when she tried to drive a more confrontational course with Iran.
Others, like Italy, get a lot of their oil from Iran. It is in nobodys interest in Europe to confront Iran with any seriousness. It took a while for some people here to get that, but I think we are there now.

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2006 7:39 utc | 23

How tempting it must be for Russia, and China, and even Europe to string the USuk along on Iran…
Now we support you; wait, now we don’t;
Just trying to run the clock out on these sociopathic war criminals – I feel like every day past without another country attacked is a day won.
(ab)using over and over again the USuk leadership’s necessary delusion that others must somehow still accord them some respect, must trust and even support their self-evidently noble aims and superior guidance;
Meanwhile allowing, even encouraging, the US in particular to spend more, borrow more, lie more, die more, even kill more in its rabid self-destructive wargasm.
All the while building, building, talking, talking, learning, learning. Buying time.
No one man could kill a mammoth; but our ancestors feasted on mammoth nonetheless.
Five years ago America was on top of the world from some vantage points although in retrospect even that was a bit wishful and historically naive.
Another 2.5 years of this and it may not be bothering anyone else for what could be a very long while. Look at the ledgers and demographics. The world just has to run the clock (and the credit) out.
Are these the birth pangs of a post-American, post-Imperial century?
Is it simply the practical, sociological and technological situation that no longer can any nation derive an ongoing overall profit from militarily subjugating another, let alone all others?
Will I live to see an emergent world-wide civil society call for the US to join all other countries in withdrawing its active military to within its own borders?
Can the US re-build its society based on privacy, liberty, tolerance and the free exchange of goods and services with other nations?
Tune in next week, for “As the Moon Turns”

Posted by: PeeDee | Jun 2 2006 10:19 utc | 24

hey, moe99, welcome!

Posted by: annie | Jun 2 2006 14:50 utc | 25

The internet is necessary for business, pride, the appearance of normality and ‘democracy’ and for keeping people quiet.
It also gives Gvmt. bodies (and others as well) a huge advantage that they would not like to give up. It permits disinformation, and allows anyone to track what the climate of opinion is, what is going on on the ground.
The advantages outweigh the risks. It is just a medium after all. No problem if you control the mainstream media. (?)
There will be no second 9/11.
It was a one-off, beginner’s luck, resting on the confluence of several forces that coalesced in unexpected ways, in a landscape that was largely unwitting. A second massive terrorist attack by ‘foreign’ forces or elements can’t fly today, in the sense of having the hoped for effect, an effect similar to that of 9/11. The 9/11 truth movement is influential and large. That doesn’t exclude a Doomsday scenario, of course; but a terrorist attack is not necessary for that.
The Madrid bombing sent Aznar into the dark, and the London bombing fizzled out. Casablanca nobody even remembers.
An article I read today stated that NY has no landmarks that need to be protected so the ‘security budget’ should be /will be slashed.
There is an upside to having Gvmts. controlled by Corporations. The Corps need a semi-stable environment to prosper; they need workers, and buyers. They have no interest in a West where murderous bands roam in the night and little girls read books by candlelight.

Posted by: Noisette | Jun 2 2006 15:38 utc | 26

Noisette says:
There is an upside to having Gvmts. controlled by Corporations. The Corps need a semi-stable environment to prosper; they need workers, and buyers.
The corpos are making super profits at the moment, maybe they are stocking up for some hibernation?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 2 2006 15:49 utc | 27

“The corpos are making super profits at the moment, maybe they are stocking up for some hibernation?”
You’d think so eh? That’s what any ‘normal’ being/entity would do.
Corporations aren’t normal, and even worse, their whole structure precludes them from having even one quarter off much less a year.
Any unit of time when a corporation is ‘making less’ than it did in the previous equivalent unit of time is a failure.
This is the ultimately cataclysmic flaw in corporations’ structure, because there is always a cost to investing in a corporation and that cost is determined as a function of time (interest rates) the corporation must always make more each time period than in did in the last.
So they get bigger and bigger and more rapacious. Their basic structure makes them unable to take heed of any factor that might stand in the way of expansion. On the plus side is that if one were to take Africa where the accepted establishment wisdom often implies that the population of Africa be regarded as a liability, and look at it in the future, there will be a time when the people of Africa are regarded as an asset, a resource. After they have been decimated by disease undoubtedly.
Of course the big question is will the Aficans cop a share ‘of the action’ before it all runs out?
Hard to say but I bet it wouldn’t be long before we heard that cliche of tired unionism, the irrational rationalisation for failing in negotiations.
“Last on. . .First off” The Africans will cop the shortest time “in the sun”.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 2 2006 21:27 utc | 28

Yeah they (Corps) have been raking it in. Many of us in the West benefit indirectly through taxes, pension funds, etc.
My own state salary is paid for by UBS (first), Rolex, Reuters, Proctor and Gamble, a few others.
I talk to these Corp. people on occasion, and not only informally.
Switzerland is somewhat special, as its brand image and its continuing capacity for ‘growth’ rests on a pretty post card image and good or fair service/hosting capacities, which includes an educated work force and NO social strife. It is a master at veiling what some here would call the face of rapacious capitalism with quite clever management.
The Corps are very aware of this state of affairs, and are willing to pay for the safety, confort, low visibility, etc. Negotiations are endless…always ongoing. In fact Gvmt. devotes a lot of ressources to that. Negotiations tend to work, have positive outcomes, because of transparency and a willingness to discuss stakes (and some would add because of Swiss democracy, I’m not sure about that one.) Smooth, or sometimes uneasy, partnerships are achieved.
All these people dislike the political extremes, be they left or right, and these are allowed to exist only because they can never achieve much.
The problem is that the loosers are living elsewhere and slowly cracks are beginning to appear…I need not elaborate…

Posted by: Noisette | Jun 3 2006 19:41 utc | 29

All this talk about nuclear weapons is purely political spin. The IAEA has stated that it has not found any evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. Iran has a legitimate economic case for nuclear power, which is why the US and Europeans were cooperating with Iran’s nuclear program — see http://iranaffairs.typepad.com

Posted by: hass | Jun 4 2006 23:17 utc | 30

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