Iran Rapprochement Is Coming
Rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran "will happen sooner rather than later" says Parviz.
I agree. There are multiple signs that the powers that be will let it happen this year.
The New York Times prints an op-ed urging for an immediate dialogue with the Ahmadinejad government.
It also sent Roger Cohen, its columnist for foreign affairs, to Iran and in the last three weeks he has written seven columns on Iran, all of them with a very positive tone. The most important one was published today on Iranian Jews:
“Let them say ‘Death to Israel,’ ” he said. “I’ve been in this store 43 years and never had a problem. I’ve visited my relatives in Israel, but when I see something like the attack on Gaza, I demonstrate, too, as an Iranian.”
...
Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran — its sophistication and culture — than all the inflammatory rhetoric.
As Cohen is a Jew and usually on Israel's side, the lobby will have difficulties to defame him for these lines.
The NYT editors would not push like this without some background information on coming policy changes.
The Canadian Globe & Mail chips in with a piece on Iran: the enemy that almost isn't debunking the 'nuclear threat' and other issues.
Italy, which is currently leading the G8, invited Iran to a G8+ foreign minister level meeting on Afghanistan.
The Jewish controlled Hollywood did NOT give an Oscar to the Israeli propaganda movie "Waltz With Bashir".
Despite several leaks and pushes by Dennis Ross friendly forces the Obama administration has NOT named him as the official point man for Iran. Ross' plan was to lead negotiations with Iran to let them fail and then to go to war for whatever fake reason. With Chas Freeman, an outspoken critic of Israel likely to be appointed head the National Intelligence Council, it will be difficult for Ross and others to make up a war reasoning out of thin air.
Another factor that will make a rapprochement easier is the presumably very right wing new Israeli government. Within a few month Nethanjahu and Lieberman will make themselves obnoxious in Washington and elsewhere. The Israel Lobby will lose power by supporting these lunatics.
Sure, there will be a public relations war where the lobby will push against rapprochement and the realists will push back. The Israeli government will try all tricks to spoil the party.
But the U.S.' need for Iranian cooperation on Iraq and Afghanistan is huge. The Iranian nuclear know-how ghost can not be put back into the bottle anyway. There is no other real reason to keep the relations as bad as they are.
Get ready for business ...
Posted by b on February 23, 2009 at 19:20 UTC | Permalink
« previous pageDavid, what I'm saying is that a lot of those immigrants came here so they could be the socialists they couldn't be at home. Nothing to do with libertarianism. No doubt huge amounts of libertarian-minded folk came over as well, and those (who might be in the majority)who just wanted to make a living beyond the confines of feudalism (Russia) or the class system, or crushing poverty. Honestly, look up Barre, Vermont. It's fascinating.
Posted by: Tantalus | Feb 25 2009 18:47 utc | 102
catlady-
Thank you, you're too kind.
Start talking about the american dream and I want to start quoting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I'm not sure if I'm personally responsible for any of the crap you've mentioned. It sucks in hindsight, but then what history doesn't? Which "first people" are the FIRST people? I think I get what you're saying, but then maybe not - I can be dense, but from where I sit who owes who for what?
Are men responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs? Should all mammals be forced to pay restitution to the reptiles for overrunning their planet?
How about them damn fish that forced us out of the ocean and onto land in the first place, should they be paying the land creatures restitution? When and where do we end the angst of the past so we can move foreword to address the problems we face today?
I understand there is much of the past woven into the future, but heck, at what generation will these past debts be forgotten? Plants and animals have gone extinct long before us humans sped the process up.
Parviz has a better way of explaining his hopes for iran. because he is much better at organizing and communicating his thoughts :)
What I would love to see is all the nationalistic mumbo-jumbo dumped and the humans of the planet realize it would be in our best interest to throw-out the old ideas of politics and countries, and recognize how cool the world might be if we spent less time bickering about the shit that really doesn't matter and worry more about the shit that does.
And I hate to beat a dead horse (but soon might be force to eat the critters, they're a popular yard decoration around these parts) but Tantulas why do you think those fine socialist folks thought they could be socialist in america vs where the lived before?
David, what I'm saying is that a lot of those immigrants came here so they could be the socialists they couldn't be at home. Nothing to do with libertarianism.
I think that you feel I'm promoting the big "L" rather than the little "l" libertarianism as a political belief and really nothing could be further from the truth.
Any political party is a potentially dangerous thing, regardless of what label they choose.
Posted by: David | Feb 26 2009 4:17 utc | 103
David (95), I appreciate your views and love of America. It would be unlikely (and impractical), even for those with the means to do so, to have everyone on this planet wanting to live in the same place!
I can think of several countries where I'd like to spend the rest of my life, but would need several lives to do so ;-)
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 26 2009 6:36 utc | 104
catlady (101), you nailed it. I am permanently torn between my pride in Iran's ancient, warm, secular, hospitable culture (see Roger Cohen's recent articles in the NYT) and my horror at what it has become, namely, the most corrupt place on Earth run by gibbering religious lunatics whose sole saving grace seems to be their resistance to U.S.-Israeli regional hegemony.
I was also anti-Shah, am anti-Communist, anti-religion, anti-U.S.-style Capitalism and just about anti-everything, so I cannot possibly suffer from any inbred infatuation with any particular system and don't have an axe to grind. The only governmental system in Iran I really liked was the 2 years of Mossadegh's rule, and the CIA soon put an end to that ........... It's been downhill ever since, with ordinary Iranians suffering from the worst of both worlds, with neither humanity nor economic progress to show for their 5 decades of suffering.
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 26 2009 6:46 utc | 105
Back on topic, U.K.'s Foreign Secretary Miliband has actively encouraged Egypt's negotiations with Hamas and says "it's the right thing to do". So we are witnessing more pieces of the rapprochement jigsaw beginning to fit into place. Israel must be livid:
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 26 2009 6:52 utc | 106
(From the website Global Research which is also banned in Iran)
Islamabad’s capitulation to the Taleban over the Swat Valley has raised fears that the Pakistan route, which accounts for 75 per cent of supplies, could soon be closed.
“The Taleban know if they make a pincer movement they can choke off that access completely,” Mr Neill said. “The options for the US are closing rapidly.”
That is why, for the first time, people are thinking the unthinkable: Iran. Last week a US Nato commander said that individual member countries could seek supply routes through Iran.
The US, when it went into Afghanistan, did not predict the turn of events in Pakistan. The search for new roads may force it to entertain alliances every bit as unexpected.
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 27 2009 12:28 utc | 107
Lee Hamilton (co-Chair of the 2006 Iraq Study Group that recommended engagement with the Iranian regime) on Rapprochement:
"The starting points for U.S.-Iran discussions, Hamilton said, would be to "state our respect for the Iranian people, renounce regime change as an instrument of U.S. policy, seek opportunities for a range of dialogue across a range of issues, and acknowledge Iran's security concerns and its right to civilian nuclear power." He said Obama has already signaled that he wants such a conversation, without preconditions.
Mature Washington Post article
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 27 2009 13:02 utc | 108
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David, I've really enjoyed your posts the past several weeks, along with your self-proclaimed "kookiness." I don't find you kooky, actually. You fit right in with the rest of us Moonbats.
When you're loving your Idéale Américaine, do you also embrace the shadow side of our "limitless land of plenty" and "uniquiness"? The genocide of the First Peoples, the extinction of the passenger pigeon, near-extinction of bison and timber wolf, the loss of the tall-grass prairie?
I was about to say I'm not trying to harsh your buzz, but maybe I am. The American Dream is a seductive and narrow reality tunnel. I think Parviz has been more balanced in his descriptions of what Iran means to him.
Posted by: catlady | Feb 25 2009 17:38 utc | 101