Seeking more carrots after last batch delivered.
As a colleague just noted to me, “The Iranians want to do what the Palestinian negotiators always want to do: make “final status” concessions a condition of sitting down to negotiate.”
Iran Ready to Walk Away from Nuclear Deal Now?
As American officials tout success of nuclear negotiations, Iran’s Supreme Leader says the negotiations are failing.
Why did Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei just say that he’s “not optimistic” about the negotiations?
“I have said before … I am not optimistic about the negotiations. It will not lead anywhere, but I am not opposed either,” Khamenei told a large crowd during a visit to the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, according to IRNA.
“What our foreign ministry and officials have started will continue and Iran will not violate its (pledge) … but I say again that this is of no use and will not lead anywhere.”
This is one of a series of comments by Khamenei expressing his mistrust of the P5+1 and Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West.
What’s going on?
The administration and its cheerleaders are convinced that if given enough time they could reach a deal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. If not in the six months stipulated in the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) signed in Geneva in November, then maybe in the subsequent six month period, as JPA states, the terms are “renewable by mutual consent.”
Things are going swimmingly, of course. Iran has said that it would divulge the results of its research into nuclear detonators. We’ll see if that happens. (But doesn’t the existence of research militate against the Iranian claims that its nuclear research is for peaceful purposes only?)
The Iranian regime immediately reminded us that the Administration is pursuing a fool’s errand, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promising that these negotiations ‘will not lead anywhere,’ and that Iran is unwilling to disassemble any nuclear facilities. The Obama administration must avoid making the same mistake it made in November, when it peddled away our leverage in the form of much-needed sanctions relief to Iran’s collapsing economy in exchange for only minor cosmetic concessions on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The White House should only accept an agreement that verifiably dismantles Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program. Anything short virtually ensures that the best we can do is contain, not prevent, Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”