Rice Warns Iran It Doesn't Have Much Time ... before our next midterm elections Rice Warns Iran It Doesn't Have Much Time Jun 2, 10:19 AM (ET) By GEORGE JAHN and ANNE GEARAN VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The United States warned Iran it will not have much time to respond once offered an international package of rewards designed to encourage Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment, suggesting that the window could close and be replaced by penalties if it doesn't act quickly. "It really needs to be within weeks," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told NBC television, referring to a response to a package of perks and penalties from six world powers aimed at halting Iran's enrichment activities. The package, agreed upon Thursday by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, carries the threat of U.N. sanctions if Tehran remains defiant over what the West calls a rogue nuclear program that could produce a bomb. A short statement issued Thursday night did not mention economic sanctions, but officials said privately that Iran could face tough Security Council sanctions if it refuses to give up uranium enrichment and other disputed nuclear activities, U.S. officials said. The formal offer of talks is expected to be made by France, Britain and Germany - the three EU nations that previously negotiated with Tehran. A senior U.S. state department official said he expected Tehran would be invited to begin new negotiations "within a matter of days." Russia and China, which both hold vetoes in the Security Council, might also join in any future talks with Iran. In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Tehran "will not face a deadline to respond to the proposal of the six nations" - but said he expected Iran to give an answer within a few weeks of receiving the offer, the ITAR-Tass news agency said. The United States, in a major policy shift, conditionally agreed this week to join those talks. It would be the first major public negotiations between the two countries in more than 25 years. Rice suggested in separate comments to National Public Radio that she was ready to meet her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, if Tehran agrees to suspend activity that can lead to the production of nuclear arms, and to negotiate the details of the deal. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Friday that signs for success were strong: "We are hopeful that the Iranian side, acting with a sentiment of responsibility and fastidiousness, will examine the proposal and that a positive approach will emerge," he told a joint news conference with his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, during a visit to Ankara. "The fact that the United States will sit at the table is important," Steinmeier said. "We hope that the two countries will reach such a decision." U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns on Thursday called the meeting's outcome "a step forward in our quest to deny Iran nuclear weapons capability." The group's statement contained no details of incentives Iran could be offered, and only threatened unspecified "further steps" in the Security Council if Tehran refuses them. Diplomats previously have said the package includes help to develop legitimate nuclear power plants and various economic benefits. They feared Iran might reject an offer of talks if the threat of sanctions was explicit, officials involved in the discussions said on condition of anonymity because the negotiations, also attended by EU's foreign policy chief, were private. We are prepared to resume negotiations should Iran resume suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities" as previously required by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said. If Iran returns to the talks, "we would also suspend action in the Security Council," Beckett said. The Security Council, which can levy mandatory global sanctions and support its mandates with military force, has been reviewing Iran's case for two months. Its permanent, veto-holding members have been at odds over the possibility of sanctions, with Russia and China opposed. Iran insists its nuclear work is peaceful and aimed at developing a new energy source. Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, on Thursday welcomed the idea of direct talks but rebuffed the U.S. condition that Tehran must suspend uranium enrichment before talks can begin. But John Negroponte, the head of national intelligence for the U.S., said Tehran could have a nuclear bomb in as little as four years. "The estimate we have made is that some time between beginning of the next decade and the middle of the next decade they might be in a position to have a nuclear weapon," he told the British Broadcasting Corp. radio. --- Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.
The title is certainly an interesting way to spin this news. Never mind the breakthrough the US has reached with Russia and China in arriving at a package they can live with. Instead you continue to be a good little liberal soldier and continue to emphasize only the negative. I'll bet Iran shapes up pretty quick. They see the large American presence in their backyard and recognize that they'll get overrun in a matter of days if it comes to it.
Well maybe if we are lucky our war with Iran can be as worthwhile , even if it is not initially a civil war.
Russia and China, which both hold vetoes in the Security Council, might also join in any future talks with Iran. Be a good conservative soldier and pretend all is well and on track in the Middle East, just as our Messianic and Machivalian President believes.
Why are we letting some little private school in Texas drive our foreign policy? Is not this a function of the Federal Government? Isn't there a law against private entities conducting diplomacy on our behalf? I'll admit there might be a cost savings here or there from contracting out government services, but this is ridiculous. And it doesn't make sense... when it come to saber rattling, wouldn't A&M be a much better choice to represent the American people? More incompetence from this administration.
What is this 2003? That's what you and your boys said a few years ago. Then Ahmedinjabad and the hardliners were able to parlay increased anti-US/Decider sentiment, largely due to the Iraq disaster, into an election victory and have since become even more belligerent and re-doubled their nuclear program.
the fact that the us is willing to negotiate is a positive sign, but as the chinese ambassador to the un said, they should be willing to negotiatie unconditionally...the fact that the us and others are asking iran to suspend enrichment before negotiations is a non-starter....iran did this for two years as it was negotiating with the eu-3 and the eu-3 ending up stalling, which caused some of the equipment to corrode...iran's not going to give up their inalienable right to master the entire nuclear process no matter what anybody says and they shouldn't have to, because they're not doing anything illegal...all sides should tone down their belligerency In Feb. of this year Iran, despite being burned by Eur. before, offered to yet again suspend enrichment for two years, but the europeans rejected the offer and demanded a ridiculous 10 year suspension: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB07Ak01.html This piece clearly demonstrates how and why europe lacks credibility vis-a-vis iran: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0cfd2c90-1...age=6e6e833c-cbff-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html
Rice gets through to Bush where Powell couldn't.... Or maybe Bush is already disillusioned with the "hardliners". Why the fluffy Rice plan on Iran is about getting Europe to act tough The Times June 02, 2006 Gerard Baker IN THE LOW-GRADE civil war that still smoulders inside the Bush Administration’s national security team, this week marked another another significant victory for Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State. For weeks the US has been resisting pressure from Europeans and a growing chorus of foreign policy experts at home to break a 27-year-old embargo on direct negotiations with Iran. Though there have been abortive unofficial contacts (who can forget Oliver North with the birthday cake, the Bible and the US hostages in Lebanon?), Washington has officially disdained to talk to the mullahs since revolutionary students seized the US Embassy in Tehran shortly after the Shah was toppled in 1979. * But with negotiations apparently stalled between Iran and the EU Three (UK, France and Germany) over the developing Iranian nuclear programme, the pressure has been rising on the US to get involved. Until now the response has been negative. At best, the Bush people said, treating with the theocrats, with their visions of an Israel-free world and their transfiguration fantasies, would be pointless. At worst, sitting down over sweet tea and pistachios would give the Iranian leadership prestige and valuable time to move closer to their nuclear dream. It would change the subject in the Middle East in a disastrous way, fetishising the diplomatic process, elevating it above the real problem: Iranian nuclear ambitions and the threat they pose to the world. In fact these unequivocal official renunciations of dialogue masked an increasingly intense debate in Washington and on Wednesday Dr Rice signalled that her diplomatic instincts had once again triumphed. The US, with the EU and, if possible, Russia and China, would join multiparty discussions with the Iranians to try to find ways to break the impasse. A delicately worded statement included some important concessions to the anti-engagers in the Administration; there would be negotiations only if Iran stopped enriching uranium and was willing to abide by internationally agreed constraints on its nuclear regime. Iran has already suggested these conditions are too onerous so negotiations may never actually start. But that won’t matter much because the symbolism of Dr Rice’s gambit was more important than the substance. The State Department is now into the most critical phase yet of a delicate and high-risk game. It is a game that some in Washington feel is destined to fail; but, for the time being at least, the President has ruled that it is the game that the US will play. Few people in Washington believe Iran is going to abandon its attempts to join the nuclear club without serious international pressure or even the deeply unattractive military option. The only hope of avoiding the apocalyptic choice is a regime of eye-wateringly tight international economic and diplomatic pressure. But to achieve that the US has to be seen to be working overtime on the diplomacy. By a tragic combination of hubris on America’s part and hysteria on the rest of the world’s, the Iraq war has undermined America’s ability to make its case. The world looks at Washington through the prism of a distorting media and sees a bunch of war-crazed neocons intent on torching the Islamic world. It notes the grisly carnage in al-Haditha and the mayhem in Basra and claims vindication. With Iran, the US has to succeed where it largely failed in Iraq, in demonstrating to a sceptical world that the US really wants to give diplomacy a chance to work, and to ensure that if (and when) it fails, it will not be the US that will be responsible. The argument at the State Department is that, having thus demonstrated its bona fides the US will be able to persuade the rest of the world to get tough with the Iranians. This is the second time now in 18 months that the hardliners in the Bush team have been worsted by Dr Rice’s diplomacy. In November 2004 the US changed course and chose for the first time to endorse the EU negotiations with Iran. The argument then was that if it stood aside while the Europeans negotiated, those efforts would be doomed. Everyone would say it was the brooding absence of the US that prevented the desirable outcome of a disarmed Iran. But with the US backing the initiative, it could not be blamed if they failed. The world would see that it was Iranian intransigence not American unilateralism that was precipitating the crisis. Now here we are a year and a half later, with almost exactly the same arguments being rehearsed in Washington. The US now envisages a two-stage process over the next few months: first the renewed diplomatic effort to give one last push to the attempt to get UN sanctions imposed on Iran — if China and Russia can be persuaded to drop their opposition. If that fails (and there is little optimism in Washington that it will succeed) the US then tries the second track: a coalition of the willing for sanctions outside the UN, including the EU, Japan, Australia and perhaps others. These would be harsh measures, not popular in the countries that the US hopes to enlist. They would doubtless result in much higher oil prices, and they would harm the economies of Europe much more than that of the US (since America already has sanctions in place, it would not be seriously affected). To do that, the rest of the world, Europeans especially, will have to be convinced that Iran is a bigger threat to world peace than the US. That is the thrust of the Rice gambit: go the extra mile, two miles, three miles for diplomacy, so that the case for tougher measures is more easily made. But the gambit’s weakness is that it rests on an assumption that, in the end, when Iranian intransigence has been duly demonstrated, Europe will be willing to make the sacrifice necessary to halt the doomsday threat from a nuclear-armed Islamist state. Who, looking at the performance of Europe in the last few years, would want to bet on that? gerard.baker@thetimes.co.uk
Pretty much diplomacy between enemies, nothing happens very quickly. What you end up with is daily rhetoric with an occasional baby step of progress.
