Gary C. Gambill: A Sweet Deal for the Mullahs

The following by Gary C. Gambill is reposted here with permission of the Middle East Forum:

A Sweet Deal for the Mullahs

by Gary C. Gambill
The National Post
http://www.meforum.org/3818/a-sweet-deal-for-the-mullahs
May 13, 2014

With negotiations between the so-called P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) and Iran over the fate of its nuclear program set to resume this week, the International Crisis Group (ICG) has released a detailedproposal for a final status settlement. Drawn from months of interviews with Iranian and P5+1 officials, the May 9 report outlines what an agreement splitting the difference between the "red lines" of both sides would look like. For anyone worried about Iran's nuclear intentions, it is a very worrying document indeed.

Mideast Media Sampler 1/3/14: For Iran, it was A Very Good Year

by David Gerstman, contributing blogger at Legal Insurrection

 The Diplomacy that Enables Tehran

President Rouhani. Credit; Legal Insurrection,  YouTube

When I was almost fifty four, it was a very good year
It was a very good year for kindly faced clerics
Whose Justice Minister was an executioner
And Defense Minister waged an anti-American war
When I was almost fifty four.

Nearly two years ago Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed President Obama about how he would deal with the threat from Iran. Given Goldberg’s support for Israel, the interview was part of an administration campaign to tell Israel and Israel’s supporters in the United States that “we’ve got Israel’s back.”

It’s unsettling now, that Goldberg has declared that For Iran, 2013 Was a Very Good Year.

Mideast Media Sampler 11/25/13: Iran Agreement Should Enforce The One Iran Broke The First Time

by David Gerstman, contributing blogger at Legal Insurrection

History’s Lesson of the Additional Protocol

Iranian FM Mohammad Javad Zarif: Mission Accomplished
Credit: Legal Insurrection Photo: KaFaDoKyA News / YouTube

In Saturday night’s P5 + 1 deal with Iran, Iran agreed to submit an “additional protocol” of more intrusive IAEA inspections of its nuclear program.

In his statement hailing the P5 + 1 deal with Iran President Obama referenced the 2003 deal:

For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program, and key parts of the program will be rolled back. Iran has committed to halting certain levels of enrichment and neutralizing part of its stockpiles.

Diplomats and journalists cite the 2003 agreement as a precedent for current negotiations with Iran. For one thing it was the first nuclear agreement between Iran and the West. Furthermore, Iran’s lead negotiator then was Hassan Rouhani, now Iran’s president.

While that may have been the first nuclear deal reached with Iran; the lessons from it may not be ones that the cheerleaders for the P5 + 1 deal have in mind.

Mideast Media Sampler 10/27/13: Have We Forgotten Iran Has Been At War With The West For 30 Years?

by David Gerstman, contributing blogger at Legal Insurrection

A Necessary Crisis with Iran

1983 bombing of US Marine barracks in Beirut Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Recently, after the first round of nuclear talks with Iran had concluded one of the American negotiators said: “… I have never had such intense, detailed, straightforward, candid conversations with the Iranian delegation before.”

The word that bothered me most in that declaration was “candid.”

What's The Best Way To Deal With Iran? Just Ask Rouhani!

If Obama is going to negotiate with Iran, he read the article from The Times of Israel that reports on When Rouhani unwittingly told an Israeli agent how to deal with Iran:

In August 1986, in the midst of what would become the Iran-Contra Affair, an Israeli adviser to the prime minister, working undercover as a US envoy, met with Hasan Rouhani, the current president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Rouhani, in discussing ways to facilitate the release of seven US hostages then being held in Lebanon, gave the Israeli the following advice: “First and foremost, you have to be firm with [Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini. Stand strongly before him… If you don’t bare sharp teeth before Khomeini, you’re going to have troubles all over the world. [But] if you threaten him with military force, he’ll kiss your hand and run.”