Posted on 10/08/2008 5:18:50 AM PDT by nuconvert
by Michael Rubin
The Australian
October 3, 2008
On November 4, Americans will go to the polls to elect their next president. But even as rival candidates Barack Obama and John McCain spar over who can bring change at home and restore America's image abroad, on the most immediate foreign policy challenge facing the next inhabitant of the Oval Office - Iranian nuclear development - there will be no change.
In their first debate, both candidates said their administrations would negotiate with the Islamic Republic, albeit not at the presidential level. Whether Obama or McCain authorises his secretary of state or some lesser official is irrelevant, however, as it takes two to tango. Too often, US politicians and commentators navel-gaze: they assume decisions in Washington shape world events and that a change in policy will be enough to alter the international milieu. Reality, though, is opposite. Washington more often reacts to international events rather than leads them. Not so Tehran. While American leaders play chequers, their Iranian counterparts play chess, planning strategy several moves in advance.
Divergent US and Iranian attitudes towards diplomacy show this clearly. Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami wowed the West when, at his 1997 inauguration, he called for a dialogue of civilisations. US and European officials took the bait. Between 2000 and 2005, for example, European Union trade with Iran almost tripled, as European leaders pursued a policy of critical engagement. Simultaneously, Tehran reaped billions of dollars from the rise in oil prices. Rather than turn moderate, however, the Iranian government took its hard currency windfall and invested almost 70 per cent of it in military equipment and its covert nuclear program.
This nuclear deception was not a result of Iranian hardliners working behind the backs of their reform-minded counterparts: the ruse was intentional. On June 14 this year, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, Khatami's former spokesman, explained: "The solution is to prove to the entire world that we want the (nuclear) power plants for electricity. Afterwards, we can proceed with other activities." He criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's provocations and suggested Khatami's strategy to lull the West with soft words better achieved Iran's nuclear aims.
"We had one overt policy, which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which was continuation of the activities," Ramezanzadeh explained.
Dialogue may sound good in theory, but the diplomacy taught in Western academies and that taught in Iranian seminaries bear no resemblance to each other. While diplomats in the US, Europe, and Australia seek compromise, Iranian diplomats learn taqiyya, religiously-sanctioned lying.
Iranian deception worked, at least until 2002 when, confronted with damning satellite images, Iranian diplomats finally acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had built a covert nuclear enrichment plant. While some Western academics rationalise Iranian behaviour and say the Iranian nuclear program is motivated only by the presence of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, in fact Iran's nuclear program predates either conflict.
( con't at source link above)
I’m not sure which of the shifting 0 positions he is using. I have yet to find any point that Barry hasn’t taken both sides.
Obama is trying to convince everyone that his only problem is that we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq and he’s more of a hawk than McCain, dontcha know
interesting ...pong
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