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The recently held negotiations of the P5+1 (U.S., Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany) and the Islamic Republic of Iran in Baghdad followed similar talks that took place last month in Istanbul – both of which produced one clear result – the enabling of Iran to buy more time in its pursuit of nuclear arms.
The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) reportedly found traces of enriched uranium at a 27% level in Iran’s Fordow facility. According to the Center for American Progress, which reflects the views of President Obama, “The United States and the International community have time to continue negotiations with Iran and let sanctions pressure the Tehran regime to come clean about its program.”
These kinds of statements and the West’s squandering of time as Iran’s centrifuges spin, has led the Netanyahu government to believe that the West is about to give in to Iran.
For Israel, time is of the essence. Israelis are not only worried about the lack of concrete results from the talks with Iran; they are deeply concerned about Obama’s habitual appeasement of Iran. Obama has tried his best to avoid imposing hard hitting sanctions (he had to be publicly rebuked by Senator Menendez (NJ) to sign the latest piece of legislation) and has been obvious in his avoidance of a military confrontation with Iran – thereby empowering the Islamic Republic, which also wants to avoid a conflict – so that it can complete its nuclear program.
The New York Daily News reported on May 30, 2012 that, “As a candidate Obama pledged to meet personally with Iranian leaders and predicted that Iranians would start changing their behavior if they started seeing that they had some incentives to do so.” As president, Obama declared in his June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo, Egypt of the need to “overcome decades of mistrust.” In this narrative, according to the Daily News, “Talks are successful insofar as they end not in collapse but in a sustained negotiating process…”
Earlier, on March 20, 2009, Obama videotaped a message to the Iranian people and leaders in honor of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. In the message he declared that, “My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties…this process will not be advanced by threats, we seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.” There was no mention in Obama’s message of Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.
Commenting on Obama’s gesture to Iran, the liberal New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote (March 23, 2009), “President Obama achieved four things essential to any rapprochement. He abandoned regime change, as an American goal. He shelved the so-called military option. He buried a carrot-and-stick approach viewed with contempt by Iranian as fit only for donkeys. And he placed Iran’s nuclear program within the full range of issues before us.”
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