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At the same time, we will continue to work with our international partners to end the proliferation trade globally, to bar all proliferators from international financial resources and to end support for terror.

We also intend to work with our friends and allies to strengthen their defensive capabilities, their counterproliferation and counterterrorism efforts, and their energy security capabilities.

Those measures present no threat to a peaceful Iran with a transparent, purely civil nuclear energy program, but provide essential protection for the United States, our friends and our allies should the Iranian regime choose the wrong path.

If the Iranian regime believes that it will benefit from the possession of nuclear weapons, it is mistaken. The United States will be steadfast in defense of our forces and steadfast in defense of our friends and allies who wish to work together for common security.

The Iranian people have a proud past. They merit a great future.

We believe the Iranian people want a future of freedom and human rights: the right to vote, to run for office, to express their views without fear and to pursue political causes.

We would welcome the progress, prosperity and freedom of the Iranian people.

The United States looks forward to a new relationship between our peoples that could advance those goals.

RICE: We sincerely hope that the Iranian regime will choose to make that future possible.

Thank you very much.

Sean, do you want me to call on people?

All right.

QUESTION: Yes, Madam Secretary, thank you. Two questions.

One is, is the offer to sit down at the table with the E.U.-3 linked to any concessions from Russia and China to support eventual sanctions if the talks stall?

And secondly, the idea of security discussions with the Iranians, is the United States willing to engage in -- if the subject turns to security is the United States willing to engage on that subject as well?

RICE: Let me take the second question first.

First of all, we have many issues of concern with Iran that do not relate to the nuclear issue. And the security issues that we're concerned about are Iranian behavior in Iraq that endangers both the Iraqi people and our own forces, the terrorism that Iran continues to support in places like the Palestinian territories and, indeed, in Lebanon.

Those are the security issues that are of concern to us. And so as I said some time ago, we have not been asked about security assurances and I don't expect that we will be.

Now, as to the question, nonetheless, of how we brought this all together, we've obviously had extensive discussions with all of our partners who've been trying to find a resolution of this nuclear issue.

RICE: And we have made clear that we believe that the offer to join the E.U.-3 talks, should Iran verifiably suspend all of its enrichment-related activities -- that that offer gives the negotiating track new energy.

We want this to work on the negotiating track. The president's made that very clear.

But we've also been in discussions with our partners about a package which we agreed to design when we were in New York a few weeks ago, and that package represents two tracks. One is a set of benefits should Iran agree to negotiate and negotiate in good faith, having suspended its program, but quite clearly also a set of penalties or a set of potential sanctions should Iran not be willing to act in good faith.

Our political directors have been working on that package. They have made good progress. I think that we have substantial progress. There are some outstanding issues that I would hope to be able to work on in Vienna.

But let's go back to what is really at stake here. There is a strong international consensus that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon, that Iran must adhere to the international community's demands that it suspend its enrichment activities and return to negotiations, and that if Iran is to have a civil nuclear program it needs to be one in which the international community can have confidence that they're not trying to build a nuclear weapon under cover of civil nuclear power.

RICE: We have complete and total agreement on that. We are working on ways to make that choice clear to Iran.

I think the last year and half or so -- year or so has really been about creating a climate of opinion about what is demanded of Iran. That we have done.

And now we hope that this offer, this proposal that we would join the talks should Iran suspend, will help to create a climate for action, either in the negotiations or in the Security Council.

QUESTION: To follow on that, do you have agreement then from Russia and China that if you got to that point, having made this overture, sort of, taken the last best hope here for diplomacy, that if it fails at that point they would be willing to back what they have been thus far unwilling to do?

RICE: I think there is substantial agreement and understanding that Iran now faces a clear choice. This is the last excuse, in some sense. There have been those who have said, "Well, if only the negotiations had the potential for the United States to be a part of them, perhaps then Iran would respond."

So now we have a pretty clear path. We have negotiations if Iran is prepared to suspend. If Iran is not prepared to suspend -- and by the way, this an understanding that comes out of New York -- that there is another path.

RICE: And while we have worked to get agreement on what had been some tactical differences, I think you can be sure that our friends and our partners understand the importance of the step and the importance that the Iranians must now see of making a choice and making that choice clearly.

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I think we have very good understanding with our partners about that.

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, two questions.

One, in the past when this issue has come up and I've asked you about it directly, you've said that there's no need for the United States to be a part of the negotiations, because Iran knows full well what they need to do. What's changed your thinking on that?

And secondly, if this works and if Iran does what you hope they will do on terrorism and on the nuclear issue, do you hold out the possibility of full diplomatic relations with the government of Iran?

RICE: I'm not going to speak hypothetically about the last point. This is not a grand bargain. I want to make very clear we're not talking here about what some would characterize as a grand bargain.

What we're talking about here is an effort to enhance the chances for a successful negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, something President Bush has said that he very much wanted to do.

We have always been determined to do what we could to support the negotiations. If you remember, about a year ago, we made some steps to support those negotiations.

We now believe that having created a strong climate of opinion in which all states are united -- in which a great number of states are united around a clear concept of what Iran must do -- and that, by the way, includes a precondition of suspension for negotiations -- that the United States might be able now to add weight to the negotiating track by joining these discussions.

RICE: Let's be very clear: Things are moving along on the ground. When the Iranians decided to walk out of the Paris agreement -- Paris talks and began accelerating their nuclear activities, the concern is growing that Iran cannot be allowed to continue that path of acceleration of its nuclear activities unchecked.

So we now have an opportunity to either check their movement toward further sophistication of their nuclear program by negotiation, to which we would be a party, or to check it by greater pressure on the Iranians through sanctions and other measures through the Security Council and, if necessary, with like-minded states outside of the Security Council.

But it's time to know whether Iran is serious about negotiation or not. We cannot continue in a circumstance in which every few days, an Iranian official says, "Well, you know, we're, sort of, interested in the Russian proposal," or, "Maybe we're interested again in going back to the E.U. negotiations," but nothing happens.

And so we think it's time now to have a clear choice and a clear -- two very clear paths.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

RICE: We are not in a position to talk about full diplomatic relations with a state with which we have so many fundamental differences.

But the Iranians can, by seriously negotiating about their nuclear program and seriously coming to a civil nuclear program that is acceptable to the international community, begin to change the relationship that it has with the international community, change the relationship that it has with the United States, begin to open the possibilities for cooperation.

RICE: That ought to be an important step that Iran is prepared to take.

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, in the past this administration has been very reluctant to do anything that might be seen as giving legitimacy to a government that you, at least in the past, always talked about as being led by the unelected few.

By agreeing to sit down with this government, are you now providing that legitimacy to this administration which has been in power for 27 years in Iran? And are you also saying that the U.S. is not going to actively try to undercut, overthrow, undermine the Iranian government?

RICE: We've been very clear, and nobody is confused about the nature of this Iranian regime. We know precisely about the nature of this Iranian regime.

We know that this is a regime that does not give rights to its people for political participation. We know that this is a regime that is engaged in supporting terrorism around the world. Nobody is confused about the nature of this regime.

But the president made very clear that we are going to do everything that we can to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear problem.

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And the only thing that is being provided legitimacy here is the international community's consensus that Iran must suspend its current enrichment and reprocessing activities, return to serious negotiations, find a civil nuclear program that does not have proliferation risks associated with it through the fuel cycle and negotiate in good faith.

RICE: That's what's being provided legitimacy. What's being provided legitimacy here is the negotiating process to which we have long been committed.

We will continue to have our differences with the Iranian regime on the vast number of issues that are before us. But it is our view that the a diplomatic solution to the nuclear program is necessary, a diplomatic solution to the nuclear program is in sight by a unified response of the international community, and that this is our best way to get that response.

Yes, you can follow up.

QUESTION: You can give legitimacy to a process, but, in fact, you have to give legitimacy to the representatives who are sitting there.

And also, European diplomats have said that in the course of these talks, or perhaps in other fora, security issues would be discussed; not that U.S. was being asked to give security guarantees to anybody, but that the U.S. obviously would be willing to talk to Iran about its concerns about the security of the Persian Gulf. Is that true?

RICE: Let me go back to the first point.

We have been a party outside of these negotiations supporting these negotiations all along, so nothing is changing in that regard. The fact that we would sit to actually try and resolve the nuclear program diplomatically, I think it goes without saying.

By the way, we have done this with regimes with which we have serious problems. We have been doing it with the North Korean regime also in a multilateral setting.

But let's remember what is not happening here. This is not a bilateral negotiation between the United States and Iran on the whole host of issues that would lead to broader relations between Iran and the United States.

RICE: This is an effort to reinforce diplomatic negotiations that we believe should succeed and have a chance to succeed with the strongest possible way.

In terms of security, we have found ways to make our concerns about security known to the Iranians. We've done it, for instance, in Afghanistan through a channel between our ambassadors.

Of course, we'll make our concerns about security known to the Iranians. But we're not going to negotiate about the terms of terrorism. You don't negotiate about terrorism. It's is wrong to engage in terrorism, and there isn't anything to negotiate.

But will we make concerns known? Absolutely we'll make our concerns known.

QUESTION: So far, Madam Secretary, you have always ruled out -- sorry, you have always refused to rule out the military option against Iran. But are you prepared to consider taking that option off the table at least temporarily while negotiations go ahead?

RICE: The president is not going to take any of his options off the table temporarily or otherwise. I don't you think really want the American president to take his options off the table.

But the president has said that we are committed to a diplomatic solution to this problem. And we believe that there are many things that we can did diplomatically.

I can remember being asked several times, "Well, is diplomacy coming to an end?" And those who travel with me will remember that I've said, "There are many other arrows in our diplomatic quiver."

RICE: Well, this is one of those arrows in our diplomatic quiver; that if, in fact, the Iranians are prepared to suspend, then the United States is prepared to reinforce these negotiations at the table.

But the principled condition here has not changed. It is not our condition. It's the condition that the Europeans set. It is also the condition that the Board of Governors affirmed. And it is the condition that the Security Council presidential statement affirms.

And so, what we will do, I believe, by making this step is to make clear that these paths are now available to the Iranians and to, in a sense, expect that the Iranians are going to soon demonstrate which of these paths they intend to take.

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, just to return to the first question you were asked, to pin you down a little bit closer on it, is the United States decision to sit down with Iran contingent on the behavior of any country except Iran? And by that I do mean Russia and China.

There are reports, as you're probably aware, that the U.S. does expect Russia and China to support stronger sanctions.

And also, is the package that you're going to discuss in Vienna -- can you give us any more details about it? For instance, is there a light water reactor in the package or is the United States prepared to let this be an E.U.-3 package and not a P-5-plus-1 package?

RICE: Well, as to the package, we're going to be discussing the package in Vienna. I also think that it's only fair that we have the discussions with our partners before we have the discussions in public about the package.

The package is one that we believe represents the instructions that the ministers gave when we were in New York, which is a series of positive benefits if Iran is prepared to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions and a set of penalties or steps that could be taken if Iran will not take that choice.

RICE: In terms of what we expect, we do expect from the international community, particularly from our partners, that if Iran demonstrates that it is not prepared to take the negotiated path, that we are going to go along the path of strong action in the Security Council. And that includes measures that may be able to bring pressure on Iran to do so.

Our choice is the following. We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon; that everybody is agreed to.

Therefore, our choice is to provide an atmosphere in which Iran comes back to negotiations and we solve this by a negotiated track -- we're trying to give that the very best chance -- or if Iran is not prepared to do this through a negotiated track, to bring isolation on Iran so that Iran realizes it doesn't have any other option. Those are two choices.

And we are going to -- we are not going to stop work with our friends and allies on what we might do if Iran makes the wrong choice. We are going to continue those discussions.

We have options that are very near-term options should they not make the right choice.

But I want to emphasize the diplomacy again here. This is a real opportunity. It's an opportunity for the world to clarify Iran's intentions. And it's an opportunity for Iran to make its intentions clear.

If Iran really wants a negotiated solution, it can suspend its enrichment and enrichment-related activities, as it has been required to do in a Board of Governor's resolution, and we can sit down at the table and talk about how to get to a civil nuclear program that is acceptable to the international community.

QUESTION: What is unclear to you about Iranian intentions?

RICE: Well, I think most of the most of the evidence thus far is that Iran does not intend to have a civil nuclear program that is acceptable to the international community; thus far that Iran does not intend to accede to the Board of Governors' demands or those of the Security Council presidential statement.

But this is another opportunity for Iran to demonstrate that, in fact, they do intend to come into the international consensus about this.

We're prepared to go either way. We're prepared to do the negotiations, and the United States is prepared to be a party to it. But Iran must suspend its enrichment activities, fully, verifiably, and then we can have negotiations.

Those negotiations I think will open up new opportunities and new benefits for the Iranian people. But that is only possible if Iran makes the choice to follow the path that has been put forth before them by the international community.

There's another path, which is a path of isolation and considerable cost. And we are working along both those paths, but obviously with the hope that diplomacy and negotiation is going to succeed.

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US offers direct talks with Iran

The US says it is ready to join direct multilateral talks with Iran on its nuclear programme if Tehran suspends disputed nuclear activities.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US would join EU nations in talks if Iran suspended uranium enrichment and reprocessing work.

Ms Rice said the move showed the US was committed to a diplomatic solution.

Analysts say the move comes as a policy shift for the US, which has had little official contact with Iran since 1979.

Washington broke off diplomatic ties after Iranian militants seized the US embassy in Tehran and held diplomats hostage.

Proposal

Ms Rice said "as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table".

The move was "to enhance the prospects for success", she said in a statement.

Ms Rice also urged Iran to consider a package agreed by the US and EU nations aimed at persuading Tehran to abandon its nuclear plans.

"We hope that in the coming days the Iranian government will thoroughly consider this proposal," she said.

The positive and constructive choice is for the Iranian regime to alter its present course and cooperate in resolving the nuclear issue

Condoleezza Rice

She is set to depart later in the day for Vienna, where she will meet the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany to discuss the package.

Ms Rice recognised Iran's right to a civilian nuclear programme "acceptable to the international community".

But she condemned what she called Iran's support for terror and when asked about the possibility of pursuing a military option against the country, said President George W Bush "was not going to take any of his options off the table".

US officials said Ms Rice's statement would be passed to Iran via the Swiss government.

'Significant'

Ms Rice's suggestion of multilateral talks is a significant new offer, the BBC's Adam Brookes says.


Ms Rice said Iran had the right to a civil nuclear programme

Washington insiders are calling this a significant shift in US policy and one which puts the emphasis on diplomacy rather than confrontation in America's dealings with Iran, our correspondent says.

In Brussels, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in a statement that he welcomed Ms Rice's remarks.

"Direct US participation would be the strongest and most positive signal of our common wish to reach an agreement with Iran," Mr Solana said.

Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed at energy production. But the US and Western allies suspect Iran of trying to build a nuclear weapon.

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The United States said Wednesday it would join in face-to-face talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear program once Tehran puts its atomic activities on hold, a shift in tactics meant to offer the Iranians a last chance to avoid punishing sanctions.

Iran dismissed the offer as "a propaganda move."

At the White House, President Bush said that the U.S. would take a leading role in solving the conflict and that it was important to do so diplomatically.

"Our message to the Iranians is that one, you won't have a weapon, and two, that you must verifiably suspend any programs, at which point we will come to the negotiating table to work on a way forward," Bush said.

Before leaving for meetings in Europe on Iran, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that while the U.S. was willing to join talks between European nations and Iran, it was also helping to prepare a package of sanctions that Tehran could face should it decline the new offer.

"We're prepared to go either way," Rice said

The overture to join stalled European talks came after mounting pressure on the U.S. from European allies.

The administration is convinced Russia and China would support sanctions or other harsh measures if new talks fail to persuade Iran to abandon nuclear efforts that the West fears could lead to a bomb, said a senior administration official. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because the secretary was continuing talks with other countries.

Rice will be working to reaffirm such support on Thursday.

The Iranian news agency said Iran accepts only proposals and conditions that are in the nation's interest. "Halting enrichment definitely doesn't meet such interests," IRNA said.

The United States has had no diplomatic ties with Iran and few contacts at all with its government since Islamic radicals took over the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and held diplomats for more than a year.

Rice will meet with foreign ministers from the other permanent U.N. Security Council members on Thursday in Vienna to finalize a package of economic incentives and threats to be presented to Tehran. That package would be on the table in any new talks involving the United States.

The Bush administration had until now refused to talk directly to the Iranians about their nuclear program, although there have been sporadic contacts among relatively low-level officials on other subjects. The U.S. has long rejected direct contacts because it says Tehran supports terrorism and because it wants to avoid appearing to legitimize the regime.

The offer to talk should strip Iran and some U.S. allies of the argument that the hardline U.S. stance was an obstacle, or that Washington was not willing to try every means to resolve the impasse peacefully, U.S. officials said.

"This is the last excuse, in some sense," Rice said.

She said the United States was not offering full diplomatic relations with Iran and would not swear off ever using military action to stop what the U.S. contends is a rogue program to build a nuclear weapon.

"This is not a grand bargain," Rice said. "What we're talking about here is an effort to enhance the chances for a successful negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem."

The administration has given arms-length support to European efforts to bargain with Iran, but also has been the prime mover for sanctions or other tough United Nations action. Russia and China, Iran's commercial allies on the council, have so far blocked that path.

Rice would not directly answer questions about whether those nations are committed to tough measures if the U.S. overture doesn't work.

She spoke of "tactical differences" and said, "I think you can be sure that our friends and our partners understand the importance of the step and the importance that the Iranians must now see of making a choice and making that choice clearly."

In New York, the U.N. ambassadors from China and Russia said the U.S. announcement showed it is more serious about finding a diplomatic solution to the dispute. Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya added that Washington's offer to talk to Iran should be unconditional.

In Brussels, Belgium, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana welcomed the U.S. words. "Direct U.S. participation would be the strongest and most positive signal of our common wish to reach an agreement with Iran," he said.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said, "The European side's goal is to present a serious and substantial offer of cooperation, which demonstrates to Iran the benefits that would flow from compliance ... rather than the further isolation which would result from their failure to do so."

The U.S. offer is conditioned on Iran suspending its enrichment of uranium and related activities and allowing inspections to prove it. European nations and the Security Council have demanded the same thing, but Iran has refused to comply.

Iran did suspend enrichment activities while talks were active with the Europeans last year but resumed and stepped up the program this spring.

Uranium enrichment can led either to a bomb or to nuclear power production, and Iran has so far insisted that it won't take any deal that involves giving up that technology.

If Iran agreed to suspend disputed activities in order to talk with the United States, it could still insist on resuming them later, which U.S. officials say would be a deal-breaker.

At that point, the United States and its allies would be expected to move for tough U.N. action, possibly including economic or other sanctions.

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http://www.american-iranian.org/announcements/pressrelease/USIranNegotiatingeEnFa-06-01-06.pdf

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The mere fact that the announcement by Secretary of State Rice, that the US government is willing to talk to the Iranian regime, was received around the world as great news is indicative of the enormity of the crisis between the two countries. Talking with enemies has always been the norm, rather than the exception, in international relations. In modern times the US has done it with most of its adversaries. Negotiation was almost a constant feature of US-North Vietnamese relations even at the height of their hostilities. Talk between the American government and Saddam’s regime in Iraq was going on and off for most of the time before both “Gulf Wars”. North Korea too, another fellow of Iranian regime in the President Bush’s trio of “axis of evil” is in long conversation with the US for many years. Fighting means that you oppose each other. But not talking – it amounts to hate.

The hate from the Iranian side has been explicit and overt. From the “Death to America” slogans that can be heard in virtually every government-sponsored mass gathering for over 25 years, to huge billboards with the same hate content adorning premium sites in Tehran and elsewhere, the message is clear. The Iranian regime does not look at the US as its adversary but as an object of hate. The slogan refers not to the US administration but to America. Compare this to the attitude shown by the Iranian regime towards its adversary Iraq during the 8 long years of fighting and bloodshed. There, all the hate was being directed at Saddam personally and not Iraq. You never heard a slogan like “Death to Iraq”, but always “Death to Saddam”. Along with the US, only three other countries in the world have been subject of “Death to” slogans under the Islamic Republic regime: Israel, Britain and the old USSR (on occasions).

From the American side, too, the element of hate can be detected. However, this hate is specifically directed at the Iranian regime and not the Iranian people or the Iranian State. How else the US government’s repeated statements that it respects the Iranian people and has high regards for them can be explained? When was the last time we heard an American official paying respect to the North Korean people in terms used to address the Iranian people? The explicit hate shown by the Iranian regime towards America has generated distaste in America towards the Islamic regime, and repeated assurances that the US has no quarrel with the Iranian people only reinforces that attitude.

In other words, the US distaste for the Iranian regime has come as a reaction to the Iranian attitude. The hate relationship started from the Iranian side, its cause being partly historical and partly ideological. The historical bit relates to the CIA-sponsored coup against the democratic government of Dr. Mossaddegh in 1953 and the support given to the Shah’s regime afterwards. But this played a minor part in the hate attitude after the 1979 revolution. After all, the British has had no better record in Iranian politics over the last century or so, and there were no raids on the British Embassy or so much hostility shown to them as to the Americans. The major part was ideological: viewing America as the bastion of Western civilisation so much anathema to the backward thinking of the Mullahs, or as the Imperialist power so much the object of hatred by the ideological Left who greatly influenced the new Islamic regime.

But are we now witnessing an end to this hate relationship? Surely, the vocabulary of the two governments has started to change. However, this may be only on the surface. There are strong reasons to believe that the change of heart on both sides is tactical rather than strategic. The two sides have different and diverging objectives in mind in this tactical move and the two lines of thought may not meet.

The Iranian regime is trying to buy time. It views the Bush administration as a dying one. It will soon pass its half term mark, and is going through one of its lowest ratings in the opinion polls. The Iraq debacle has finally caught up with his credibility and has hampered any attempt at a new misadventure. The mid-term election is looming and the president has not much to rely on in a bold foreign policy. So from the Iranian side, engaging Americans in never-ending rounds of talks may be the best way of seeing the end of Bush administration and the neocons’ aggressive strategy in the Middle East. And in the meantime, if the Iranian regime can continue with its enrichment program to the weapon-level point, the better. Hence, the categorical insistence by the Islamic regime that it will not accept any suspension of its nuclear program.

The US government, on the other hand, is trying to impress Russia and China that it is doing all it can to resolve the Iranian regime’s nuclear crisis peacefully. Getting the consent of these two countries for a UN resolution has so far proved very difficult. So the US has agreed to talk to Iran, as well as agreeing to other “incentives”, but making it conditional that Iran suspends its enrichment program. The US is doing it without being very hopeful that Iran would accept the condition. It hopes to demonstrate to Russia and China (and the rest of the world) that Iran has no intention of giving up its suspicious nuclear program. Then it can press these reluctant countries to agree that there are no other means left but to threaten Iran with sanctions.

So the two governments are trying to use the offer of talk as means of achieving different objectives. The Islamic regime has successfully used the talk mechanism with Europeans to buy time while under US threat of invasion following the US-UK attack on Iraq. Once that threat was apparently lifted (due to the Iraq debacle), it saw no more need to continue with the talk and to suspend the enrichment program. So with the new fundamentalist president in power in Tehran, it broke off the negotiations and resumed the nuclear activities. Now it wants to talk while these activities continue. On the other hand, the US has offered to talk only if these activities ceased. There is no midway point for the two conditions to meet. One side has to yield for talks to take place. Some new brinkmanship is in place, but the prospect of talk has not much improved. The hate relationship between the two governments is still dominant.

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Rice Key to Reversal on Iran

At the end of March, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Europe and had unusual, one-on-one conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. She also attended a meeting in Berlin on Iran at which the Russian and Chinese representatives denounced the idea of sanctions to halt Tehran's drive toward a nuclear weapon.

Rice returned to Washington with a sobering message: The international effort to derail Iran's programs was falling apart. Her conclusion spurred a secret discussion among Rice, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley: Should the United States finally agree to join the Europeans at the negotiations with Iran?

Though Bush administration officials had publicly always dismissed that possibility, officials at the highest levels -- including Cheney, frequently but inaccurately portrayed as an adamant foe of joining the talks -- realized that soon the administration would be forced to grapple with the question, five U.S. officials said in interviews last week. Otherwise, the options seemed to either be that Iran would get the bomb or the United States would be drawn into another war.

"We knew it was a card we had to play at some point," one senior official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, adding that the issue was at what time and under what conditions.

Last Wednesday, Rice made the announcement. The next day, in Vienna, she used the U.S. offer to secure an accord with Russia, China and the Europeans to present Iran with a choice of either inducements to return to negotiations or face action in the Security Council.

Iran has reacted warily, so the impact of the decision will not be clear for some time. But the administration's about-face, as recounted by U.S. officials, shows the dominant influence of Rice on the policymaking process. A year ago, she persuaded Bush to back the European talks with Iran. Conservatives were concerned but went along, thinking the European effort would fail. Now, Rice has moved the administration to a point unimaginable at the start of the second term.

"Condi felt the need to jump-start the talks and take control of the situation," a second official said.

The troubled Iraq war also hangs over Iran diplomacy. Administration officials have little confidence in the intelligence on Iran's programs, while allies overseas view U.S. actions through the prism of Iraq. That concern has forced the administration to emphasize diplomacy to avoid the breach with its allies that characterizes the Iraq war.

On May 8, as Rice flew to New York to meet with foreign ministers from Europe, China and Russia on Iran, she started to bring her closest aides, such as Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, into the discussion. She pulled out a calendar, which she had marked up in multicolored pens to note key dates, such as a Group of Eight meeting in Russia in July.

She also focused on Iran's claim that by year's end it hoped to have a 3,000-centrifuge cascade for enriching uranium.

The meeting with the foreign ministers was acrimonious and lasted well into the night. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out at Burns because, at Rice's instruction, Burns had called repeatedly for Russia to stop selling arms to Iran. Despite the heated words, the meeting set in motion the talks that led to the Vienna announcement. The foreign ministers agreed to set aside any Security Council resolution against Iran and instead come up with a list of proposals that would sharpen the choice for Iran. "We needed to test the Iranians," a third official said.

Officials said there was essentially no dissent among Bush's top advisers on joining the talks. The Pentagon raised no objections, and the only cautionary tone came from Cheney, who said that the shift should not lead the administration down a "slippery slope," in which they end up retreating from their core red line: an end to enrichment and reprocessing -- the two paths toward fissile material. The group agreed to hold their red line.

Bush made it clear he did not want the United States to be seen as weak in making this move, officials added.

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During the week of May 13, under strict secrecy, Rice assembled a small group of her closest aides to figure out how to structure and package the announcement. The group included Burns, Undersecretary for Arms Control Robert Joseph, counselor Philip Zelikow, senior adviser Jim Wilkinson, chief of staff Brian F. Gunderson and spokesman Sean McCormack. They were told to inform none of their aides and make no photocopies of documents. Meetings of the group in Rice's office were obscured on Rice's calendar by listing it under "security issues."

Joseph was assigned to write Rice's statement. Gunderson, a former Hill staffer, focused on selling the policy shift to key lawmakers while McCormack and Wilkinson developed a strategy on how to showcase the announcement. Officials wanted the Iranians to understand that this was a genuine offer, so it was decided that Rice would speak in the State Department's ornate Benjamin Franklin Room, giving the event a presidential aura.

The weekend before the announcement, Rice went to Camp David to make the final pitch to Bush. Her team had worked up answers to address questions from Bush about the wisdom of the move. Bush ultimately gave his final approval after speaking with key foreign leaders.

On Tuesday, the day before the announcement, Rice let U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton -- long a skeptic about dealing with Iran -- in on the secret. Bolton then joined Rice, Hadley and Joseph over dinner -- and was asked to call conservative commentators the next day to explain the decision.

[Rasputin]

The nocturnal fare called Late Night with David Letterman often features a shtick called “Is this anything?” The curtain rises and a person or two perform an act or display something and then the curtain descends a few moments later. The host, Mr. Letterman, and his musical director, Paul Shafer, then engage in light banter in order to decide if what they just witnessed in actuality was “anything.” The choice is either “something” or “nothing.” The parody that the sketch embodies is typical of the theatre of the absurd and that is why I think the question that it poses is the most apt form of a query regarding the recent mis en scene in London, where the cast of La Comedie americaine mounted yet another farcical performance of the piece entitled The Iranian Follies.

After days in rehearsal, the various cast members of this cage aux folles-like “international community” appeared from the backstage to announce that they had agreed on a package of carrot and sticks in order to dissuade the Iranian government from enriching uranium and reprocessing activity. The virtuoso personification of the stick in this production, Ms. Condoleezza Rice, supported a very fashionable two-piece red suit and a grin that made her pearly teeth sparkle all the more in the midst of her tanned face.

If rang-kardan (deceit) had a face this will be it. She stood by silently and let Ms. Margaret Beckett do most of the talking.

Ms. Beckett, the newcomer of the troupe, who played the ingénue role of the carrot-wielding British Foreign Secretary on very short notice, spoke eloquently. Her lousy reddish-blonde-strawberry hair-dye was in character, however. Ms. Beckett is an impressionable lass and this was obvious in her confused diction when referring to Iran and Iranians. When pronouncing Iran, she uttered it as it should be pronounced Iran (E-run), but when saying Iranian she echoed her American counterpart’s incorrect utterance Eye-rainians. They both may require a diction coach when it comes to sitting across the table “negotiating” with the Iranian strongman Khamenei and the president Mahmoud “the Mighty Mouse” Ahmadinejad. I am personally disappointed in Ms. Beckett playing second fiddle to Ms. Rice, though. In the immortal words of Jean Anouilh, I must ask “ou est l’honneur de Becket[t]?”

A cast of male performers crowded the back part of the stage, standing behind the Anglo-American lady duet. While they appeared as supporting actors, let there be not doubt that they are the presenteurs of the bunch, without whose muscle and testosterone-driven machismo nothing will get done. The Chinese, Russian and French players are essential to the production of The Iranian Follies. The role of the German foreign secretary however is an add-on that the audiences around the world consider a curiosity – a hanger-on with no real membership in the UN’s exclusive Actors’ Guild. The Iranian name for this character, a parasitical and uninvited guest, is tofaili. Another name for it might be khourous-e bemahal (out of place rooster, false note) or, better yet, nokhodi (a player who does not count really), or nokhod har ash, an officious intermeddler of sort.

The play lacks literary value and has very little appeal outside of the theatre districts in a few countries. The message is unconvincing and belabored. The international community (read: US and anyone else bought, coaxed or coerced by the US) wants Iran to stop uranium enrichment and reprocessing activity. This part of the script departs from the original requirement that Iran cease enrichment. How did the line about “reprocessing” enter the play? Are these players confusing Iran with North Korea, which has reprocessing capability? Iran has not even spent the first nuclear fuel rod and it is already a candidate for ban on “reprocessing!” Unless these folk mean something completely different, reprocessing is what one does to the spent fuel rod from a nuclear power plant in order to seek more fuel from it, a by product of which is plutonium. If Iran does not intend to develop breeder reactors or plutonium bombs, then Iran may want to let the Russians or others in the international community do the reprocessing and bury the highly radioactive waste in their own backyard.

Even to get to the talking – however -- the international community wants Iran to suspend enrichment and reprocessing activities and, in return, the international community will suspend the Iran file at the United Nations Security Council. What a deal! The problem is that there are too many suspensions and not enough suspenders for Iran – without which Iran’s bottom would be overly exposed amid a bunch of people running around armed with carrots and sticks. If the parties want dialogue then there can be no precondition, including that there be no precondition, because to ask for no precondition is itself a precondition! This spins the head faster than any centrifuge, which cannot be suspended or stopped too many times without incurring structural damage.

Once they get talking and agree -- the international community is supposed to help Iran develop peaceful nuclear energy for electricity production, but Iran must forgo producing its own fuel. Instead the international community will offer Iran participation in a Russian fuel cycle center and establish a fuel bank to hold up to five years of fuel for Iran under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Administration. I am not sure of the appropriate sound effect here in response to this expression of magnanimity -- is it zeki or a piercing shishaki? I am sure that the visual is one big fat Persian bilakh, of which I will speak shortly.

Of all people, the Iranians are supposed to trust the Russian bitch-bear, who would eat its own cub. This is the country that ripped off Iran’s caviar and fisheries from 1927 until the early 1950’s and then some. This is a country that has repeatedly invaded Iran. This is a country that cut the export of gas to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics because they were cozying up to the United States. This is a country that betrayed Iran over the division of the Caspian Sea. By all means, I say, Iran should definitely trust the reliable Russians with the fuel supply for a key-sector as vital as its national electricity!

Nor should Iran go along with the promise that the international community will establish a fuel bank to hold up to five years of fuel for Iran under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Administration. The IAEA is a US-lackey and its director general cannot do squat without some approval from Washington. Secondly, fuel bank accounts can be frozen just like regular bank accounts, warehoused materiel and credits that the US froze over a decade ago in the US and Europe, and just like the ones it will freeze if the Iranians do not go along with this package of “incentives.”

[Rasputin]

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If it values independence, Iran should not trust the international community, especially the United States. Point I, paragraph 1 of the General Principles of the Declaration of the Government of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria (Algiers Accords that ended the US-Iran Hostage Crisis in 1980) stated: “Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs – The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.” The US policy in more than a decade has been to foster and fund regime change in Iran. Equally, it threatens Iran with military action by not removing use of force from the table as an option. It openly invites Iranians to rebel against their government with a veiled but empty promise to help them succeed. It openly wishes to force Iran to abandon pursuit of self-reliant nuclear fuel technology, to which Iran is entitled under the Nonproliferation Treaty. No aware Iranian would put two bits on the American promise to guarantee Iran’s fuel cycle, security and support for membership in the World Trade Organization. This last-named incentive is a non-incentive. As long as Iran refuses to undertake structural changes to its economic system, the prospects of Iran qualifying for WTO membership is nonexistent.

What is emerging from this farce is that a band of bullies have decided to make an offer to Iran to give up something they do not like. Then if Iran rejects the offer, they wish to make the rejection a criminal act and subject to punishment. Of course none of them is worried of such a precedent visit it because they are all nuclear powers. If anything, this charade points to the requirement that Iran must develop nuclear weapons in order to stave off blackmail, intimidation and bullying by the not-so-super powers.

Was this production in London anything? Not really. If this was anything, it would have not taken days to come up with a common proposal against a country whose lack of transparency about the same activity has been rather open and known for more than three years! If this was anything, the Chinese or the Russian actor would have announced the agreement, even though protocol required that the host-country actor announce the monumental (!) breakthrough.

The Texan in the White House is fond of saying, “Don’t mess with Texas,” and the snake portrayed on the older US Navy flag warned, “Don’t tread on me.” It is time for the Iranian government to declare to the US and her lackey neo-colonialist friends, “Don’t **** with me!”

From the viewpoint of an Iranian -- I would say – “neither carrot, nor stick.” Iran should offer the international community a big fat bilakh (outstretched thumb) of its own. No deal. The government should replace the emblem on the middle stripe of the national tricolor with a nice rendition of a rounded headed bilakh, just like the ones that the weekly Towfiq used to depict back in the day! A true blue may consider substituting the sword of the lion in the Lion-and-Sun Iranian flag with a bilakh of his own. Regardless, in order to make sure that the subtle change does not go unnoticed, it is recommended that an inscription on the flag proclaim a hearty befarma, an invitation for the international community to sit on it.

Now, that would be something!

[Rasputin]

If Iran is ready to talk, the US must do so unconditionally

It is absurd to demand that Tehran should have made concessions before sitting down with the Americans .


It is 50 years since the greatest misquotation of the cold war. At a Kremlin reception for western ambassadors in 1956, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced: "We will bury you." Those four words were seized on by American hawks as proof of aggressive Soviet intent.
Doves who pointed out that the full quotation gave a less threatening message were drowned out. Khrushchev had actually said: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you." It was a harmless boast about socialism's eventual victory in the ideological competition with capitalism. He was not talking about war.

Now we face a similar propaganda distortion of remarks by Iran's president. Ask anyone in Washington, London or Tel Aviv if they can cite any phrase uttered by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the chances are high they will say he wants Israel "wiped off the map".
Again it is four short words, though the distortion is worse than in the Khrushchev case. The remarks are not out of context. They are wrong, pure and simple. Ahmadinejad never said them. Farsi speakers have pointed out that he was mistranslated. The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by Iran's first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that "this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" just as the Shah's regime in Iran had vanished.

He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The "page of time" phrase suggests he did not expect it to happen soon. There was no implication that either Khomeini, when he first made the statement, or Ahmadinejad, in repeating it, felt it was imminent, or that Iran would be involved in bringing it about.

But the propaganda damage was done, and western hawks bracket the Iranian president with Hitler as though he wants to exterminate Jews. At the recent annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful lobby group, huge screens switched between pictures of Ahmadinejad making the false "wiping off the map" statement and a ranting Hitler.

Misquoting Ahmadinejad is worse than taking Khrushchev out of context for a second reason. Although the Soviet Union had a collective leadership, the pudgy Russian was the undoubted No 1 figure, particularly on foreign policy. The Iranian president is not.

His predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, was seen in the west as a moderate reformer, and during his eight years in office western politicians regularly lamented the fact that he was not Iran's top decision-maker. Ultimate power lay with the conservative unelected supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Yet now that Ahmadinejad is president, western hawks behave as though he is in charge, when in fact nothing has changed. Ahmadinejad is not the only important voice in Tehran. Indeed Khamenei was quick to try to adjust the misperceptions of Ahmadinejad's comments. A few days after the president made them, Khamenei said Iran "will not commit aggression against any nation".

The evidence suggests that a debate is going on in Tehran over policy towards the west which is no less fierce than the one in Washington. Since 2003 the Iranians have made several overtures to the Bush administration, some more explicit than others. Ahmadinejad's recent letter to Bush was a veiled invitation to dialogue. Iranians are also arguing over policy towards Israel. Trita Parsi, an analyst at Johns Hopkins University, says influential rivals to Ahmadinejad support a "Malaysian" model whereby Iran, like Islamic Malaysia, would not recognise Israel but would not support Palestinian groups such as Hamas, if relations with the US were better.

The obvious way to develop the debate is for the two states to start talking to each other. Last winter the Americans said they were willing, provided talks were limited to Iraq. Then the hawks around Bush vetoed even that narrow agenda. Their victory made nonsense of the pressure the US is putting on other UN security council members for tough action against Iran. Talk of sanctions is clearly premature until Washington and Tehran make an effort to negotiate. This week, in advance of Condoleezza Rice's meeting in Vienna yesterday with the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, the factions in Washington hammered out a compromise. The US is ready to talk to Tehran alongside the EU3 (Britain, France and Germany), but only after Tehran has abandoned its uranium-enrichment programme.

To say the EU3's dialogue with Tehran was sufficient, as Washington did until this week, was the most astonishing example of multilateralism in the Bush presidency. A government that makes a practice of ignoring allies and refuses to accept the jurisdiction of bodies such as the International Criminal Court was leaving all the talking to others on one of the hottest issues of the day. Unless Bush is set on war, this refusal to open a dialogue could not be taken seriously.

[Rasputin]

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The EU3's offer of carrots for Tehran was also meaningless without a US role. Europe cannot give Iran security guarantees. Tehran does not want non-aggression pacts with Europe. It wants them with the only state that is threatening it both with military attack and foreign-funded programmes for regime change.

The US compromise on talks with Iran is a step in the right direction, though Rice's hasty statement was poorly drafted, repeatedly calling Iran both a "government" and a "regime". But it is absurd to expect Iran to make concessions before sitting down with the Americans. Dialogue is in the interests of all parties. Europe's leaders, as well as Russia and China, should come out clearly and tell the Americans so.

Whatever Iran's nuclear ambitions, even US hawks admit it will be years before it could acquire a bomb, let alone the means to deliver it. This offers ample time for negotiations and a "grand bargain" between Iran and the US over Middle Eastern security. Flanked by countries with US bases, Iran has legitimate concerns about Washington's intentions.

Even without the US factor, instability in the Gulf worries all Iranians, whether or not they like being ruled by clerics. All-out civil war in Iraq, which could lead to intervention by Turkey and Iraq's Arab neighbours, would be a disaster for Iran. If the US wants to withdraw from Iraq in any kind of order, this too will require dialogue with Iran. If this is what Blair told Bush last week, he did well. But he should go all the way, and urge the Americans to talk without conditions.