Iran Thwarts Obama Effort To Engage on Nuclear Drive

by Roy C | July 16, 2009 at 11:34 am

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Obama repeatedly promised during the presidential campaign that he would meet with the Iranian leadership unconditionally over the question of the Iranian nuclear program, which is illegal under UN and international law.

During the campaign, Hillary Clinton took the harder line saying that it would not be useful to meet with Iran's leaders without preconditions.

To most observers, the operating assumption of Obama appeared to be that he would bring in fresh blood and a new attitude to the process of negotiating, most of which had been carried on by European powers and had stalled during the War in Iraq and Bush's identification of Iran as one of the three nuclear rogue powers in the so-called "Axis of Evil".

With the demonstrations and subsequent crackdown on dissidents in Iran, Iran appears to be completely unwilling to engage in any discussions whatsoever.

President Obama had taken what most assumed to be a soft-line on the Iranian crackdown in the attempt to avoid allowing the Iranian theocrats to charge the US with "meddling". The harshness and duration of the crackdown eventually sparked a second set of comments that President Obama said were in line with his first, while critics of the accommodating tone of the first remarks, praised his second effort as more in line with the support necessary for emerging democratic movements around the world.

The consequences of having no negotiations include a Middle East nuclear arms race, an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities by Israel, and the uncertainties created by attempting to predict what a fundamentalist Muslim, such as Ahmadinejad, with an apocalyptic vision of where the world is headed, might do with atomic weapons.

Iran Spurns Engagement on Nuclear Drive, Thwarting Obama Effort

By Henry Meyer

July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian leaders are turning inward and rejecting engagement with the West as they blame outsiders for street protests, even as President Barack Obama’s administration pushes for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.

The leadership has denounced foreign governments as “enemies” for encouraging demonstrations over last month’s presidential election and plans to put a British Embassy employee on trial for inciting the protests, which were violently suppressed. A French student also has been detained on spy charges.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded yesterday that direct talks remain “the best vehicle” for presenting Iranian leaders with a choice of limiting their nuclear ambitions or continuing “down a path to further isolation.”

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Clinton said neither she nor Obama “have any illusions that dialogue with the Islamic Republic will guarantee success of any kind.” She added that “the prospects have certainly shifted in the weeks following the election,” an assessment endorsed by specialists on the region.

“It’s much harder for any engagement strategy to be successful” in the post-election atmosphere, said former U.S. diplomat Mark Fitzpatrick, who now heads the non-proliferation program at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The regime is increasingly isolated since the election and more determined than ever to reject international demands that it give up uranium enrichment, a prelude to developing a nuclear weapon, said Fitzpatrick, who was deputy assistant secretary of State for non-proliferation until 2005.

Consequences of Failure

Obama’s engagement initiative seeks to persuade the regime to accept limits on nuclear development in return for economic and political benefits. Its failure could trigger a regional arms race, increase chances of an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and lead Iran to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s crude oil is transported.

“The U.S. administration is discovering now that that the attitude of Iranian leaders is harder to sway than they thought on the campaign trail,” said Ilan Berman, an Iran expert at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington. “That’s where the frustration is coming from.”

Reflecting that frustration, Clinton said July 8 that the U.S. will seek wider sanctions against Iran if it rejects dialogue. Vice President Joseph Biden said July 6 that Israel has a “sovereign right” to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.