Paul Pillar | The National Interest

The Privatization of U.S. Foreign Policy | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-privatization-us-foreign-policy-246

The latest news on this subject is that casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is offering to pay for construction of a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. Such an offer constitutes a sort of bonus to show Adelson’s satisfaction with how his earlier large financial contributions to Trump’s campaign helped to buy President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This move was a personal goal of Adelson, based on his personal affinity with Israel exceeding any affinity he has with the United States. Looked at from the standpoint of U.S. interests rather than private interests, the move was a huge mistake. It isolated the United States and was a major blow to any remaining hope for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

[...]

Given these prevailing attitudes and given the penury being forced on the State Department, perhaps a future step in the privatization of U.S. foreign policy will be the selling of naming rights. Maybe the building to be erected in Jerusalem will have a sign in front identifying it as the “Sheldon Adelson Embassy” or, along the lines of most naming rights deals, the “Las Vegas Sands Embassy."

#Etats-Unis #privatisation

Misusing Intelligence to Sell Conflict with #Iran | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/misusing-intelligence-sell-conflict-iran-23430

Although nobody knows exactly where Donald Trump intends to go with his campaign of seeking confrontation with Iran, his administration already has provided disconcerting parallels with the techniques an earlier U.S. administration used in selling its launching of a war against Iraq. Among these techniques is the cherry-picking of intelligence not to inform policy-making or to enlighten the public but instead to inculcate false perceptions among the public and thereby to muster support for a policy already chosen.

#Etats-Unis

Permanent Warfare as Normality | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/permanent-warfare-normality-22847

http://nationalinterest.org/files/main_images/rsz_rts1btu1.jpg

That the current unending warfare was launched as a so-called “war on terror” has added significantly to these problems. (Bacevich lists as another of his reasons for the acceptance of permanent war that “terrorism gets hyped and hyped and hyped some more.”) The “war on terror” label, and the associated concept, never were logical. As the late Zbigniew Brzezinski once commented, calling this a war on terror makes as much sense as calling World War II the “war on blitzkrieg”. Terrorism is a tactic that has been used for millennia, and in that regard the countering of it is endless. The “war” terminology also has encouraged the excessive militarization of counterterrorism.

Diverting Attention from the Tragedy of #Palestine | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/diverting-attention-the-tragedy-palestine-20396

The Council session, and the attempt to turn a discussion about Palestine into a discussion about #Iran, also demonstrates how much the Trump administration’s tortured effort to attribute all malignity in the Middle East to Iran is motivated by the Israeli-originated use of Iran as a grand diversion. The Israeli government’s principal response whenever it begins to feel uncomfortable attention to its occupation is to declare that Iran is the “real problem” in the region and that’s what people should be giving their attention to instead. The Trump administration has been following the same script. That script is not an effective way to address either actual issues with Iran or the problem of an occupation that in a few weeks will reach the half-century mark.

#Israel #Israël

Military Force and the Fallacy of the Middle Way
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/military-force-the-fallacy-the-middle-way-18191

There is a time-honored technique, familiar to veterans of policymaking in the U.S. Government, for ostensibly giving the boss a choice of options but in effect pre-cooking the decision. That is to present three options, which can be aligned along a continuum of cost or risk or whatever, and to list as the middle option the one that the option-preparers want to have chosen. Often this option is indeed chosen; as presented, it appears to be the most balanced and reasonable one, avoiding excesses of the alternatives on either side.

But the appearance is an artifact of how the issue and the choices are framed. The whole framework may be skewed. The offered alternative on one side may be inherently more extreme than the one on the other side. If a more complete list of options were presented, the additional alternatives may be mostly on one side, and the pre-cooked “middle” option would be revealed to be not in a moderate middle after all.

#pseudo_choix #manipulations #foutage_de_gueule #guerre

Israeli-Arab Relations : Muddling Through by the Sword
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/israeli-arab-relations-muddling-through-by-the-sword-17521

Israel could have had full and normal relations with its Arab neighbors long ago. Many years have passed since most Arab government in effect accepted Zionism.[...]

More recently, as an editorial in the New York Times observes, there has been de facto development of ties, in the absence of full diplomatic relations, between Israel and some Sunni Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. There also has been a warming of relations with Egypt, a relationship that had mostly been a cold peace since Sadat’s time. As the editorial correctly notes, such developments reflect how the political status of the Palestinians is not a top priority for most Arab governments, and indeed it has long had to compete with more parochial concerns of those governments. But the plight of their Palestinian brethren still is a salient issue for most Arabs, [...]

The kind of de facto and semi-secret relationships that have been developing are the wrong kind of Israeli-Arab relations. They are not in the best interests of the United States or of anyone else. Far from being a basis for peace and prosperity, they are themselves based on conflict, regional divisions, authoritarianism, and the threat or use of force. With regard to Egypt, the warming of ties with the regime of strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has to do with el-Sisi’s harsh internal crackdown and especially his bashing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is related to his willingness to cooperate with Israel in bashing the Brotherhood’s Hamas cousins in the Gaza Strip. With regard to the Gulf Arab monarchies, the dealings with Israel have to do with the determination of those regimes to expand their regional influence and to pursue their rivalry with Iran. That determination has become so strong in the Saudi case that it has led to the reckless aerial assault and consequent humanitarian disaster in Yemen—a situation that has gotten so bad that a bipartisan group of U.S. congressmen is urging the Obama administration to delay a major sale of arms to the Saudis.

In short, the recently developing Israeli ties with these authoritarian Sunni Arab regimes are a matter of more regional conflict and instability, not more peace and prosperity.

Ce que ne dit pas l’auteur, c’est que pour #Israel, ces régimes sont au contraire « #modérés » et sont les garants de la « #stabilité »

#arabie_saoudite #saoud

Why Russia is Discrediting American Democracy
Paul Pillar
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/why-russia-discrediting-american-democracy-17611

American democracy is looking less and less distinct from the rickety versions of democracy in much of the less developed world, in which the bending of rules by incumbents to frustrate challenges to their rule is common.

#Etats-Unis #démocratie

Foreign Conduct as a Response to U.S. Policy
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/foreign-conduct-response-us-policy-16210

Le comportement des #Etats-Unis est toujours une (forcément bienveillante) réaction au (forcément mauvais) comportement (pour l’humanité toute entière) des autres, mais ces derniers ne sont jamais motivés par le comportement (forcément bienveillant pour toute l’humanité) des Etats-Unis.

« #nos_valeurs »

#Iran Not Seeking Entry to U.S. Financial System, Envoy Says
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-mohammad-javad-zarif.html

“We never asked to have access to your financial system,” Mr. Zarif said. “What we asked was to implement the nuclear deal, which requires the United States to allow European financial institutions to have peace of mind for dealing with Iran.”

[...]

Because many international financial transactions are conducted in #dollars or converted to dollars, foreign companies interested in doing business with Iran remain wary of inadvertently violating the American rules. This reluctance has frustrated Iran and led to accusations by Iranian officials that the United States has subverted the nuclear agreement.

#Etats-Unis

Asymmetry in Syria and the Russian Drawdown
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/asymmetry-syria-the-russian-drawdown-15520

In short, the entire sequence of Russian moves, including the initial intervention and the current reduction of forces, has helped to create and maintain the necessary hurting stalemate to make possible a negotiated settlement. By contrast, greater U.S. intervention into the kind of situation that existed last year only would have fed opposition recalcitrance about pushing toward a military outcome and would have pushed resolution of the conflict even further out of reach.

Other Russian behavior, including in the partial cessation of hostilities and the U.N.-mediated political negotiations, are consistent with the current Russian aim in Syria being a peaceful settlement. If Putin is so clever, we should build on the fruits of his cleverness to pursue a peaceful compromise, which would be in U.S., Russian, and Syrian interests alike.

#Poutine #Russie #Syrie

J’apprends en lisant un article du 8 mars dernier (donc avant l’annonce du retrait russe) de Paul Pillar que l’#Iran a retiré la plus grande partie de ses troupes de la #Syrie,
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-latest-non-nefarious-iranian-behavior-15439

Je cherche des liens en Francais sur Google : je n’en ai trouvé que 3 :

L’Iran commence à retirer ses troupes de Syrie (rapport)
▻http://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/international/moyen-orient/95340-151211-l-iran-commence-a-retirer-ses-troupes-de-la-syrie-rapport

Les Gardiens iraniens de la révolution se retirent de Syrie, annonce John Kerry
▻http://www.45enord.ca/2016/02/les-gardiens-iraniens-de-la-revolution-se-retirent-de-syrie-annonce-john-ker

Et ▻http://www.lorientlejour.com/article/972365/les-gardiens-iraniens-de-la-revolution-se-retirent-de-syrie-kerry.htm

Comme l’explique Paul Pillar la discrétion des MSM sur ce sujet se justifie par la nécessité absolue de taire tout ce qui ne colle pas avec la narration (sionisto-saoudo-néocon) d’un Iran qui profite des concessions qui lui sont faites pour se montrer, je cite, « encore plus #néfaste »,

Now the nuclear agreement is in force, and we can look for any evidence of changes in Iranian regional activity. What certainly should count as significant evidence is the recent report that Iran is withdrawing from Syria a significant portion of the Revolutionary Guard Corps forces that it had deployed there. That’s right: this is Iranian regional activity—violent activity, involving combat—that is going down, not up. Surely those observers who can be expected to be watching like a hawk whatever Iran is doing in the region would have noticed. It’s not as if the report was confined to inconspicuous places. The report first appeared on Israeli television and was replayed in other Israeli news outlets. The Israeli report, according to which Iran is withdrawing all of a 2,500-strong fighting force while leaving 700 military advisers in Syria, is consistent with a brief comment by Secretary of State Kerry in a Congressional hearing less than two weeks ago that Iran had withdrawn a “significant number” of its Revolutionary Guard Corps troops from Syria. But from the people who have said so much about financial windfalls from sanctions relief and how that would lead to Iran doing more destabilizing things in the region, we get no comment. Radio #silence.

#MSM #silence_radio

Get Over It : #Iran Will Have Missiles | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/get-over-it-iran-will-have-missiles-14784

Faites-vous une raison : l’Iran aura des Missiles

Plusieurs choses importantes sont à comprendre concernant les missiles balistiques et l’Iran, au-delà du fait que ce sujet est devenu l’un des derniers sur lequel s’accrochent ceux qui veulent que l’Iran soit un paria ostracisé et craint à jamais, et qui veulent toujours tuer l’accord de limitation du programme nucléaire de l’Iran.

[...]

Les missiles balistiques sont dans les forces armées de nombreux Etats. Ils sont devenus des parties importantes et acceptées de la posture de défense de nombreux Etats. La plupart de ces États ne disposent pas de ce qu’on appelle communément armes de destruction massive et les missiles de leurs arsenaux ne sont pas destinés ou conçus à être utilisés avec de telles armes. Au contraire, ils font partie d’une stratégie de défense standard. S’il y a un génie dans les missiles balistiques, il en est sorti depuis bien longtemps.

Une #rhétorique effrayante est employée des qu’il s’agit d’Iran, rhétorique qui a évoqué à maintes reprises la perspective d’un missile balistique intercontinental iranien, évidemment dans le but d’amener les Américains à croire que les programmes de missiles iraniens constituent une menace pour les Etats-Unis.

Une telle rhétorique a peu ou pas de rapport avec ce que les Iraniens ont réalisé concernant le développement et les essais de missiles balistiques. En tant qu’expert de missiles Greg Thielmann, qui étudie de près le programme iranien, a conclu qu’un ICBM iranien "n’est nul part en vue ▻http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/commentary/2015/09/14/irans-nuclear-ballistic-missile-threat-not-horizon/72254428." Les travaux iraniens sur les missiles ont mis l’accent sur ​​les systèmes à plus courte portée qui sont plus pertinents pour les besoins de défense de l’Iran dans le cadre de son propre environnement.

Ces besoins, et la manière dont les dirigeants iraniens les perçoivent, sont façonnés par une histoire douloureuse qui a vu des voisins utiliser des missiles balistiques contre l’Iran et par la perspective que les voisins armés de missiles pourraient utiliser de telles armes à nouveau. La #guerre Iran-Irak, commencé par l’agression de Saddam Hussein contre l’Iran en 1980, a connu plusieurs épisodes de "guerre des villes" dans lesquels les populations civiles ont été soumises à un bombardement aérien. L’Irak a utilisé des avions pilotés ainsi que des missiles balistiques pour attaquer les villes iraniennes, mais pendant les phases ultérieures de la guerre, la destruction des villes a principalement résulté des missiles irakiens.

Il est impossible d’arriver à un chiffre exact des pertes subies par ces frappes de missiles [...], mais pour le seul premier épisode de la guerre des villes de 1984, les #victimes_civiles se sont comptées par dizaines de milliers.

[...]

Dans la région du golfe Persique c’est l’Arabie saoudite qui avait le plus œuvré dans le sens d’une prolifération des missiles balistiques de par son achat -alors secret- dans les années 1980 de missiles à portée intermédiaire CSS-2 en provenance de Chine. Aujourd’hui, les dirigeants iraniens regardent à travers le Golfe leurs rivaux régionaux d’Arabie Saoudite et voient un arsenal considérable de missiles incorporant une technologie originaire de Chine et du Pakistan.

Il est inconcevable pour tout dirigeant iranien, indépendamment de sa politique ou de son idéologie, de désavouer la poursuite des efforts visant à l’amélioration et au développement d’un arsenal iranien.

Une confusion supplémentaire de l’espèce de rhétorique qu’on entend aujourd’hui concerne le fait de savoir exactement de quelle manière les missiles se rapportent ou pas à l’accord nucléaire conclu récemment. Cet accord-[...]-n’a pu être obtenu que grâce au fait que les parties ont accepté de se concentrer sur la question nucléaire elle-même plutôt que de patauger dans d’autres griefs. Ceux-ci incluent non seulement les griefs occidentaux contre l’Iran, mais aussi les griefs iraniens contre l’Occident et les Etats-Unis, dont certains ont à voir avec les activités militaires des États-Unis dans le voisinage immédiat iranien.

Malgré les allusions fréquentes aux essais de missile iraniens comme « violation », ils ne constituent pas une violation du Plan conjoint d’action globale (par exemple, l’accord nucléaire) ou de l’accord préalable de deux ans. En fait, rien de tout ce que l’Iran a accepté n’est violé.

Et ce n’est qu’en tant que sanctions que la question des missiles intervient légitimement dans le cadre de l’accord sur le nucléaire.

Un embargo sur l’exportation vers l’Iran de matériel lié aux missiles et une variété d’autres types d’armements conventionnels faisait partie d’une série de sanctions liées au nucléaire et spécifiées dans une série de résolutions du Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies adoptées avant le début des négociations qui ont conduit à la JCPOA. Il en est de même d’une résolution de 2010 appelant l’Iran à ne pas se livrer à une activité de développement de missiles. Toutes ces sanctions, comme les autres sanctions liées au nucléaire, avaient pour but d’inciter Téhéran à négocier des restrictions sur son programme nucléaire. À cet égard, ils ne sont pas différents de sanctions sur l’accès aux services bancaires ou sur l’exportation de pistaches. Les sanctions liées aux missiles avaient pour but supplémentaire de geler ou de retarder tout développement de missiles iraniens pouvant être utilisés pour porter des armes nucléaires tant qu’il n’y avait pas d’accord empêchant l’Iran de produire la matière fissile nécessaire pour une telle arme.

Maintenant, il y a un tel accord. Il n’y a donc plus de raison de maintenir ces sanctions. [...]

Fantasies of a Liberal Interventionist
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/fantasies-liberal-interventionist-14758

A representative of the liberal interventionist school—and of some of the worst errors of that school—is Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen. Although questions certainly can be raised about whether Cohen merits the label of liberal and whether the Post is justified in considering him a “left-leaning” columnist, Cohen himself endeavors to distinguish himself from schools of thought more associated with the political right, whether such distinctions are justified or not.

#interventionnisme #Etats-Unis

Nurturing Extremism in Gaza | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/nurturing-extremism-gaza-13258

The histories of many lands have repeatedly demonstrated two patterns in the relationship of extremism to political and economic conditions. One is that the combination of miserable economic circumstances and a lack of peaceful political channels for pursuing grievances tends to gravitate people toward extremist groups and ideologies. The second is that the resulting extremism is on a sliding scale. What may have been seen at one time as an extreme response to circumstances may, as misery continues and possibly worsens, come to be seen as part of an inadequate status quo and is eclipsed by something even more extreme.

Such a process is taking place today in the Gaza Strip, the open air prison in which 1.8 million people endure what for some time have been genuinely miserable circumstances.

#Gaza, #extrémisme

NATO Ambivalence and Stashing Weapons in Eastern Europe | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/nato-ambivalence-stashing-weapons-eastern-europe-13126

[...] qu’auraient été les affaires européennes aujourd’hui si l’histoire avait été autre, l’OTAN n’ayant pas été maintenue et élargie vers l’est, dans une sorte de tour de victoire éternel pour avoir gagné la guerre froide [?]

Désarmement : la conférence de suivi du TNP achoppe sur le Proche-Orient
AFP / 23 mai 2015
▻http://www.romandie.com/news/Desarmement-la-conference-de-suivi-du-TNP-achoppe-sur-le-ProcheOrient/596058.rom

Nations unies (Etats-Unis) - Une réunion des pays signataires du Traité de non prolifération nucléaire (TNP) s’est terminée vendredi sur un échec, les Etats-Unis et leurs alliés rejetant une initiative arabe sur la création d’une zone exempte d’armes nucléaires au Proche-Orient.

Après presque quatre semaines de tractations, Washington, Londres et Ottawa ont indiqué qu’ils s’opposaient à une partie du projet de document final. Celui-ci fixait au 1er mars 2016 la date limite pour convoquer une conférence sur la création de cette zone et chargeait le secrétaire général de l’ONU Ban Ki-moon de faire progresser cette initiative lancée en 1995.

Israël, qui n’a pas signé le TNP mais assistait à la conférence en observateur pour la première fois depuis 20 ans, refuse de se voir dicter la date ou l’ordre du jour d’une telle conférence et rejette la tutelle de l’ONU.

ONU : #Israël doit se départir des armes #nucléaires | Métro
▻http://journalmetro.com/monde/678642/onu-israel-doit-se-departir-des-armes-nucleaires

ORGANISATION DES NATIONS UNIES, États-Unis – Une majorité écrasante de pays ont adopté une résolution à l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU pour demander à Israël de se départir de ses armes nucléaires, qui seraient désormais surveillées par un organisme international.

Selon le document, appuyé par 161 pays contre cinq, Israël est le seul pays du Moyen-Orient qui n’a pas ratifié le Traité sur la non-prolifération des armes nucléaires. La résolution édicte que le pays devrait signer le traité immédiatement et s’engager à ne plus produire d’armes nucléaires. Israël devrait aussi renoncer aux armes qu’elle possède déjà. Ses installations seraient contrôlées par l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA).

Les #États-Unis et le #Canada faisaient partie des pays opposés à la résolution, aux côtés d’Israël, alors que 18 pays se sont abstenus.

Inconsistent Treatment of Middle Eastern Nuclear Programs | The National Interest Blog
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/inconsistent-treatment-middle-eastern-nuclear-programs-11808?page=

The stated rationale for the United States casting on Tuesday one of the very lonely votes it sometimes casts at the United Nations General Assembly, on matters on which almost the entire world sees things differently, warrants some reflection. The resolution in question this time endorsed the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East and called on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to renounce any possession of nuclear weapons, and to put its nuclear facilities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. A nuclear weapons-free Middle East and universal adherence to the nonproliferation treaty are supposedly U.S. policy objectives, and have been for many years. So why did the United States oppose the resolution? According to the U.S. representative’s statement in earlier debate, the resolution “fails to meet the fundamental tests of fairness and balance. It confines itself to expressions of concern about the activities of a single country.”

Will Politics Kill a Deal on #Iran? - Defense One
▻http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/11/will-politics-kill-deal-iran/99740

If it were left to the negotiators, we would have a deal already. Those close to the talks say that they have crafted technical solutions that can prevent Iran from using its program to build a bomb and verify any attempt to cheat.

The track record is encouraging. Iran has fully complied with the interim agreement negotiated last November. For the first time in a decade, progress on the program has been halted and even reversed. Iran has stopped enriching uranium over 5 percent and eliminated the stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned 2 years ago could give Iran the core material for a bomb within “weeks.”

Iran is further away from a bomb today than before this interim deal. The nuclear sites are under unprecedented inspections. Some issues of compliance have arisen, but have been resolved. A comprehensive agreement could provide verifiable assurance that Iran’s program remains non-military, and impose intrusive inspections to provide substantial warning of cheating, break-out or “sneak-out.”

The main problems are political. Hardliners in Iran and the United States remain opposed to any deal.

“My brothers, we are in danger,” one Iranian hardliner told a conference audience as they watched a video portraying Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his negotiators “as gullible tools of the United States,” reports Thomas Erdrink for The New York Times. They fear that a deal would be the beginning of a fundamental shift in society, triggering other reforms. This, indeed, is precisely why many Iranian human rights advocates support a deal as a critical first step to realize their reform goals.

There are signs that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may have reined in this opposition, at least for now. Revolutionary Guard leaders have recently expressed support for the negotiators.

President Obama could only wish for such power. His political opponents seem a mirror image of Rouhani’s, portraying Obama as a vainglorious fool, desperate to get a deal. They are whipping up a frenzy of activity to block any agreement.

While some Democrats are critical of a deal, increasingly this is shaping up as a partisan attack to prevent Obama from achieving anything resembling a victory. This strategy brought the GOP control of the Senate and it might work to assure further gains in 2016.

Thus, 43 U.S. Senators wrote to Obama last week—all Republicans. The letter by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill, blasts an agreement that hasn’t even been written yet as “a weak and dangerous deal which will prove unacceptable to the American people.”

To be acceptable, they say, the agreement must require Iran “to dismantle its illicit nuclear infrastructure and completely disclose its past work on nuclear weaponization.”

Eleven senators-elect also wrote the president. Again, all Republicans. They also demanded that the deal “eliminates their nuclear program and all future nuclear capabilities.”

The tactic of these attacks and similar ones raised by conservative and neoconservative groups is to raise impossibly high standards for the deal. The favored approach to Iran’s program is reminiscent of Rome’s approach to Carthage: the entire program must be razed to the ground, never to grow again.

The #Iran Nuclear Talks: Show Us Your Brackets
Paul R. #Pillar
▻http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-iran-nuclear-talks-show-us-your-brackets-11457

According to the meager indications that have leaked out, the negotiators already have arrived at common language for the great majority of provisions in an agreement. Differences remain on just a few sticking points such as capacity for uranium enrichment and the length of time Iran would be subject to the one-of-a-kind restrictions that the agreement would entail. The parties should consider making public the draft agreement as it now stands, with the continuing disagreements indicated through bracketed language.

(...)

Letting us all see the terms of a draft deal might help us get away from a silly mantra that has been so drummed into the discourse by opponents of any agreement with Iran that even those who support the negotiations sometimes voice it. The #mantra is “no deal is better than a bad deal.” The mantra is a fatuous tautology. Whether a particular deal is good or bad depends on comparing it with no deal. Seeing the terms of an actual draft agreement would enable all of us to make that comparison. And what could then be demanded of the hardliners on both sides is: explain exactly why no agreement at all supposedly would be better than the terms you see before you—even with the bracketed language that the other side wants.

Hardliners on our side would have to explain why the absence of agreement—meaning no restrictions on uranium enrichment, no enhanced inspection and monitoring, and nothing else in the way of special requirements being placed on Iran—would be better than allowing Z (rather than X) number of centrifuges.

#lobby_pro_Israel

US sent CIA Director as Ambassador to Tehran after CIA overthrew Iran’s Democratic gov’t (US now Complaining about Hostage-Taker Amb.)
▻http://www.juancole.com/2014/04/ambassador-overthrew-democratic.html

In 1953 the US Central Intelligence Agency conspired with right wing generals and other anti-democratic elements in Iran to overthrow the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. See Ervand Abrahamian’s recent study of this episode, “The Coup.” A liberal from an aristocratic background, Mosaddegh had committed the sin of coming to power just after the parliament nationalized Iran’s petroleum industry (i.e. declared that it belonged to Iran–as it did– rather than to BP’s then incarnation, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.). The US put Mohammad Reza Pahlevi back on the throne, and he became an insufferable dictator and pro-American stooge.

An operative in the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s was Richard Helms, the “gentlemanly planner of assassinations. He rose to become deputy director of the CIA and then, 1966-1973, director. Helms was a serial murderer who attempted to rub out Fidel Castro and Salvador Allende among others.

In 1973-77, Helms was sent by the Nixon administration to be ambassador to Iran. Sending a career CIA operative and former director of that organization as diplomatic envoy to the country where the CIA had destroyed democracy was a huge slap in the face of the Iranian people, and they knew it. (Because Third Worldism was in vogue, many leftist youth in Iran were probably also aware of Helms’s sinister role in Chile and Cuba).

The hostage crisis? It happened precisely because the US embassy in Tehran was used as a planning HQ for the 1953 coup. When the Carter administration admitted the shah for medical treatment into the US, the revolutionaries became alarmed that this step was a prelude to Washington putting him back on the throne yet again. It wasn’t a wild notion.

The US inability to separate out intelligence work from dirty tricks and covert operations, and its inability to separate out the latter from diplomacy, is what put American diplomats’ lives in danger in late 1979.

Appointing Aboutalebi to a position in New York was intended as an insult.
But sending Helms to Tehran as ambassador was truly a douchebag FU moment.

So as usual, however much the Iranian hard liners (who have never forgiven the US for the coup) want to insult the US, we’ve done much worse to them.