As Niles had equivocated in that great RT clip, the ball is squarely in the West’s ballcourt, and, the Oily Bomber, along with all of our AIPAC bought-off Congress Critters, are the sick individuals that are failing us miserably…

…the Obama Administration seems no more prepared to deal with the big issues that will determine diplomatic success or failure—namely, accepting the principle and the reality of internationally safeguarded enrichment in Iran and recognizing that a negotiated solution will necessarily entail significant sanctions relief—than it was during its initial experience in multilateral negotiations with the Islamic Republic during 2009-2010. Until that changes, the chance for anything other than failure or, at best, an extremely narrow deal of little strategic significance—is negligible…

…the Iranians assess that the Obama Administration has an interest in keeping the negotiations going at least through the U.S. presidential election in November. As Flynt points out, they have been using the talks as a way of probing Western seriousness about a potential deal…

…But the talks are not going to produce anything of strategic significance unless the United States substantially alters its approach…

Just to be sure…

No gaps exist between the U.S. and Israel on Iran nuclear program, says official…

Senior official involved in Baghdad talks says U.S. is pressuring Iran because it perceives it as a real threat to world security, not because of Israeli pressure…

…The U.S. official, who is intimately acquainted with the P5 + 1 talks which took place in Baghdad last week, asked to remain anonymous owing to the sensitive nature of the issue.

According to the official, the U.S. government does not feel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to pressure it over negotiations with Iran.

“We are the ones who are pressuring ourselves because we see a nuclear Iran as a real danger to global security, and not because of Israel, ” the U.S. official said.

“Even if we do not have the patience, we need to give diplomacy a chance before military action…it is still not too late, and I think that Israel thinks that it is already too late,” the official added…

…On Friday, the head of the U.S. negotiation team, undersecretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman, arrived in Israel along with officials from the White House National Security Council working on the Iran nuclear issue – Gary Seymour and Puneet Talwar.

The American team had a three-hour meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, with National Security advisor Yaakov Amidror, and a number of other senior Israeli officials who deal with the Iran issue, in order to update them on the talks in Baghdad.

According to the U.S. official, the Israeli government was the first to be updated by them on what happened in Baghdad after the talks were over. “We updated the Israelis in detail before we updated our own government,” the official said.

“This shows how much trust and security we have in our ties with Israel.”

Former AIPAC employee, MJ Rosenberg, totally eviscerates that ‘anonymous’ US official’s foreign delusions…

Mainstream Media & Bloggers Are Too Scared To Mention AIPAC In Iran Coverage

…Every piece of legislation dealing with Iran, including all the sanctions bills, were written in AIPAC’s offices and then handed over to favored senators and representatives for introduction. For the last decade, every AIPAC annual conference, attended by the President and half the Congress, has had as its centerpiece the need to confront Iran. Just this week, as negotiations began in Baghdad, the Vice President met with the ultra-right Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, which is led by this guy. (Watch the youtube, you will fall off your chair laughing). And the next day the Senate Majority Leader met with the same group. The message to the Conference in both cases: trust us, we will not deviate from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policy that sanctions not be lifted no matter what Iran offers. And we didn’t!

To put it simply, there would be no Iran hysteria was it not for the lobby. After all, was there hysteria over North Korean nuclear weapons? The North Korean regime is insane which the Iranian regime is not. And we have over 100,000 troops in South Korea, not to mention that Seoul, the South Korean capital, is virtually on the border with the crazy north.

But Iran is different. And that is because of the lobby. (If groups other than the lobby cared much about Iranian reprocessing, would not Biden and Harry Reid have met with them. Of course, they would have. But they know Iran is strictly an Israel lobby issue. And that means it is enmeshed in the question of who will or will not receive campaign contributions from PACs and individuals who take their marching orders from the lobby.

Imagine if there was no lobby. (Such a lovely thought)

…And that is among the many reasons that I wish the timid MSM and bloggers would start telling the truth to the American people. This whole issue is not about us. It’s about Netanyahu and AIPAC. And, largely due to them, we may never be able to resolve it.

George Washington is spinning in his grave, waiting for Rachel Maddow to address this issue. Fat chance.

Neither Maddow or the other “progressives” want to risk offending people who might slow their advance to the heights. That is why this is the ONLY issue that the wise don’t touch with a ten foot pole.

Career comes first. And last…

Now, I may not be paid for my I/P blogging, but, I have always soldiered on…!

God help us all…!

From the Grey Lady…

Iran: Ready to Resolve Dispute, and Eager to Ease Sanctions…

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Monday that Iran was prepared to resolve the nuclear dispute with world powers at their next meeting, in Baghdad on May 23, if the West showed some good will by easing the sanctions imposed on Iran. Mr. Salehi, above, also hinted that Iran might be willing to change its uranium enrichment policy, which is at the heart of foreign suspicions that the Iranians are secretly developing the capacity to make nuclear weapons…

However, Bibi took serious umbrage with the whole talks idea, thundering…

…Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has harshly criticized the talks on Saturday between Iran and six world powers, saying “my initial impression is that Iran has been given a freebie” to carry on with its nuclear program.

Netanyahu said the decision to continue the talks on May 23 gives Tehran five more weeks to enrich uranium as it likes.

Netanyahu’s statement came after he was briefed by the White House about Saturday’s talks in Istanbul…

DM Ehud Barak had more to add… Nuclear talks don’t exempt Iran from attack…

…Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday that Israeli military action against Iran remains an option even while nuclear negotiations are under way, and voiced strong doubts whether the talks would succeed, Reuters reported.

Asked whether the negotiations, which began in Turkey on Saturday, could persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment, Ehud Barak told Army Radio: “It does not look to me as if it is going to happen – not now, in the wake of Istanbul, and not … after the (Baghdad round of talks next month).”

“We are not committing to anything,” Barak said, when asked whether any such pledge had been made. “There is not, there has not been, there should not be and there cannot be (such a promise).”

To further emphasize the point… Israeli TV report shows air force gearing up for Iran attack, says moment of truth is near…

‘IAF expects losses, and knows it can’t destroy entire Iranian program’

…The report, screened on the main evening news of Channel 10, was remarkable both in terms of the access granted to the reporter, who said he had spent weeks with the pilots and other personnel he interviewed, and in the fact that his assessments on a strike were cleared by the military censor.

“Years of preparations are likely to come to realization,” he said, adding that “the moment of truth is near.”

Even Foggy Bottom wasn’t very helpful… U.S. rules out easing Iran sanctions…

…“No one’s talking about any sanctions being reversed or canceled at all,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters in response.

But Toner said that the United States, echoing a statement by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, was ready to look at incentives in return for progress from Iran.

Toner also denied any “freebie” for Iran, saying: “We’ve got the strongest sanctions in history against Iran right now, and they’re going to get stronger as we move into the summer.”

And to further add insult to injury, in true Bipartisan fashion too…Senators Reject Iran Talks, Demand More Sanctions…

Somebody, please tell me what ‘incentives’ are being proffered to Iran…! I can’t find hide nor hair of ‘em…!

*gah*

Let me start off the discussion with something Trita Parsi had mentioned to Laura Rozen recently…

…The United States wants Iran to stop enrichment to 20 percent, to turn over its stockpile of low enriched uranium, and to halt plans to make Fordo operational. “But what can they and the Europeans” offer in return? asked Parsi, who is the author of a new book on U.S. diplomacy with Iran. A “mutual freeze on any mutual escalation” is one possible formulation, he said. But western powers are “asking Iran to give up things they already have.” It’s hard to imagine, he added, that the United States would be prepared to offer Iran a corresponding suspension of sanctions already in place–particularly while a presidential election is under way in the United States…

Iran Affair’s Cyrus Safdari expands on the fallacy…

…And it occurred to me that in reality no one in the US can offer anything that Iran would logically and presumably ask for. For example, on the question of removal of sanctions: Can Obama actually remove the sanctions? He has the legal authority to rescind some Executive Orders, of course, but that is only a small part of the web of sanctions imposed around Iran. He would have to go up against the US Congress, which as that Tom Friedman character recently said, is “bought and paid for” by Israel. So how would these sanctions be removed, exactly? How could the State Department actually get Adelson to stop funding think tanks that hire PhDs as advocates acting under a guise of scholarly objectivity to promote the idea that giving up on sanctions amounts to Chamberlain bowing to Hitler? How could Obama get editors to stop or start using keywords and phrases over and over again in their publications, “Nuclear Weapons Program”, “Terrorism”, etc.? How could he do any of this, even if he didn’t have to worry about getting re-elected, because after all he can’t do anything unless he’s re-elected… {snip}

…So, am I right? Assuming that Washington wants to resolve things with Iran peacefully and is willing to make the necessary compromises to do so, IS anyone in Washington really in a position to deliver on such promises and to implement such policies in the face of domestic opposition, where being ‘weak on Iran’ is blood in the water for the opposing campaign? To sell any sort of real change in Iran policy to the public, or at least those who pay for his election campaigning, the President would have to be willing to consume a great deal of political capital. Can he get the necessary laws passed, and other laws rescinding? How many votes in Congress would that require? How much fighting will be required for each vote? Its just not possible. No politician in the US can do this. Even assuming he could win some of the fights, it would consume far more resources than any politician can be willing to dedicate to a single cause…

MJ Rosenberg, in Al Jazeera, cited Jeffrey Goldberg a few times…

Assassination in Tehran: An act of war?

The murder of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran suggests that Israel and neoconservatives are pushing for war.

…Writing about a piece in the current edition of Foreign Affairs that endorses bombing Iran as a neat and cost-free way to address its nuclear programme, Goldberg explains why he thinks the author, Council on Foreign Relations fellow Matthew Kroenig, is wrong. Goldberg says he now believes:

…that advocates of an attack on Iran today would be exchanging a theoretical nightmare – an Iran with nukes – for an actual nightmare: A potentially out-of-control conventional war raging across the Middle East that could cost the lives of thousands Iranians, Israelis, Gulf Arabs and even American servicemen.

Think about that for a minute. Uber-hawk Jeffrey Goldberg is saying that the threat posed by Iran is a “theoretical nightmare” while a war ostensibly to neutralise that threat would present an “actual nightmare”.

{snip}

…Here is Jeff Goldberg again in a column subsequent to the one I already cited:

If I were a member of the Iranian regime (and I’m not), I would take this assassination program to mean that the West is entirely uninterested in any form of negotiation (not that I, the regime official, has ever been much interested in dialogue with the West) and that I should double-down and cross the nuclear threshold as fast as humanly possible. Once I do that, I’m North Korea, or Pakistan: An untouchable country.

In short, for those hell-bent on getting the US engaged in a war that even Jeff Goldberg views as a “nightmare” for both the US and Israel, this is a very good day indeed.

Congratulations. Or something like that.

Jim Lobe really hammers home the point…

Whoever Killed the Scientist Was Aiming at Much More

Under these circumstances, the timing of today’s assassination was particularly remarkable. Among other things, it makes me believe that the U.S., which condemned the attack and categorically denied any role in it (See Clinton’s statement in her press conference with the Qatari Prime Minister here), was not in fact involved.* That leaves two obvious suspects: 1) Israel and 2) a faction within the Iranian regime. If there was indeed an Israeli hand behind it, the assassination was not just an effort to set back the Iran’s nuclear program and induce fear among other scientists working on it. I think it was also a provocation designed to 1) blow up prospects for progress in any p5+1 negotiations that might convene over the next month or so; 2) strengthen hard-line factions in Tehran that oppose negotiations; and 3) possibly provoke retaliation that will further escalate tensions, if not armed conflict. Of course, all three of these overlap and reinforce each other. If it was an internal Iranian faction, which, frankly, I find more difficult to believe, both 1) and 2) above also apply…

About the possible internal Iranian faction within the Iranian Regime, both Emptywheel and Jim White are pointing to JSOC ops, as opposed to CIA ops, and, even the possibility of Mossad posing as CIA agents…!

Alex Kane at Mondoweiss had this to add…The headline you aren’t seeing: Iran wants talks, Israel pushing for war…

Foreign Policy has been abuzz with numerous posts…

Iran agreed to nuclear talks and an IAEA mission… And… Do Israelis really want to bomb Iran?

Now, as ex-CIA Middle East desk Chief, Philip Giraldi, updates his 2007 prognostication of What World War III May Look Like… He then paints a mighty bleak picture of What War With Iran Might Look Like…

God help us all…!