A primary reason to move forward rapidly with the proposed “exchange” is to establish trust, and demonstrate an ability to make a deal work. Enlarging the scope invites interference from Israel, the Israel lobby, and the neocons (and associated warmongers).

“One element of a deal for Iran to ship LEU to Turkey, for the 20% fuel for the TRR, is that Iran would suspend enrichment to 20%. I would expect this suspension to be permanent. Iranian enrichment to 20% was a primary cause of Russian and Chinese support for the latest UN sanctions.

If the US/EU etc can strike a deal up front for suspension of enrichment to 20%, it already moves beyond a TRR deal and addresses the core of the dispute. In so doing, I think it must also address the UNSC resolutions, sanctions, and Iran’s non-compliance with the IAEA, simply because anything partial to grease the wheels of a TRR deal alone will create too much precedent and/or contradict the international “legal” landscape that is already in force.

I do not think the US/EU will want to provide Iran with any elbow room by separating the TRR from the main issue again.

We should keep in mind that the neocons (and associated warmongers) only claim to want Iran to enter into negotiations, and that the sanctions are instead intended to dupe the American public into believing the warmongers tried to achieve a fair resolution of the situation.

This is a primary reason the negotiations should move forward quickly on the “exchange” of LEU for the 20% U for the TRR.

Did G W Bush intend to attack Iraq, even before he was elected in 2000? The neocons certainly were conspiring to set up an attack on Iraq, to achieve regime change. Even during the campaign, Bush talked about a modest, quiet foreign policy.

“Talks on Iran’s nuclear program will resume in September, and despite the war bluster from neocons and the far right, the Obama administration seems prepared to try once again.”

Irrelevant. Nobody expects Obama to just arbitrarily launch an attack. Even Bush didn’t do that for over two years, despite having fully intended to attack Iraq since before he was elected.

“From discussions with U.S. officials, here’s what I’ve gleaned about the administration’s policy on Iran. First, there is no appetite whatsoever, and no serious consideration, being given to a military attack on Iran. Not even Dennis Ross, the hawkish aide at the National Security Council, brings up the possibility of a military strike, U.S. officials tell me.”

And those US officials are: a) idiots, or b) liars. This is the same drivel one could get from unnamed “US officials” before the Iraq war. It means nothing. Dreyfuss doesn’t ask the “next question” which is what happens when sanctions fail?

“Second, they say, sanctions against Iran may or may not impact Iran’s decision-making over its nuclear program, and it’s unlikely that sanctions can work effectively; but in any case sanctions are designed for their long-term impact — over years and not weeks or months — so the latest round of sanctions isn’t designed to have immediate impact on how Iran approaches talks later this summer. This means that hawks who call for setting a tight deadline for the sanctions to work are simply trying to use the sanctions as a stepping-stone to war. Obama isn’t listening.”

But here is the contradiction! These unnamed “US officials” ADMIT that sanctions WILL NOT WORK! So they backtrack and say, “Well, it’s just to compel talks!” But if the sanctions don’t work, HOW CAN THEY COMPEL TALKS? It’s nonsense. This is spin to suggest that the recent sanctions are why the Iranians want to restart the talks.

Who says “Obama isn’t listening”? Does Obama think he can run this game for another eight years? Does Obama think he can stave off the Israel Lobby for another eight years? Does Obama think he can corral Netanyahu for another eight years? Of course not. Obama knows that sanctions inevitably lead to war. He is following precisely in the path that Clinton and Bush followed with sanctions against Afghanistan, and then
Iraq. Sure, it wasn’t CLINTON who started the war with Afghanistan and Iraq. But without Clinton, Bush would have had much less leverage to start those wars and it would have taken him perhaps longer. Obama is in the same position. He is ADVANCING the CAUSE for WAR. Whether he starts the war or not is not relevant, except in terms of the timing and whether Israel will wait for another eight years.

“Finally, U.S. officials say, Obama has consistently supported engagement with Iran since the campaign of 2008. He didn’t abandon the policy of engagement and diplomacy under withering attacks from Hillary Clinton in 2008, and he didn’t abandon them under the firestorm of criticism by the likes of the American Enterprise Institute and the Weekly Standard in 2009. The problem is, Iran didn’t or couldn’t respond positively to Obama’s offer to engage, beyond the October 2009 breakthrough in which Iran agreed to ship most of its enriched uranium to France and Russia for reprocessing. That accord broke down when Iran’s fractured political system proved incapable of implementing it.”

This is just ruminant evacation. Obama has not “engaged” Iran at all since his election. And even during his campaign, he argued that if Iran did not comply with ceasing ALL enrichment on Iranian soil, he would procede with sanctions including a blockade of Iran’s importation of petroleum products. And that is exactly what he had done, short of the naval blockade – yet. THAT may still be in the cards if the current sanctions against Iran’s petroleum imports do not work.

“Now, it appears, the talks are back on track.”

Operative word is “it appears”. Nothing is as it seems.

“The State Department announced yesterday that it is prepared to re-engage and restart the aborted talks over the deal reached last October concerning the enriched uranium for Tehran’s research reactor. This is a big deal. Said P.J. Crowley, the State Department spokesman: “We obviously are fully prepared to follow up with Iran on specifics regarding our initial proposal involving the Tehran research reactor … as well as, you know, the broader issues of trying to fully understand the nature of Iran’s nuclear program. We hope to have the same kind of meeting coming up in the coming weeks that we had last October.””

The bit about “the broader issues” is code for: “We’re going back to our demand for suspension of enrichnment.”

“According to U.S. officials, the new talks are likely to begin at the technical level. But they could quickly escalate to more senior officials.”

Meaning they will fail at the technical level, allowing the senior officials to claim they “tried”.

“Catherine Ashton, the chief negotiator for the European Union, also said that the EU — which is represented by the U.K., France and Germany in the so-called P5 + 1 — is ready to start talking again, and she raised the possibility that the talks could expand to broader issues: “I’ve made it clear…that we would like those talks to resume quickly and that we would be very clear that the issue on the table is Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and approach. That is the issue. All other issues can be discussed later.””

As I said, “Suspend enrichment or we’re not talking to you.”

“Significantly, Iran has reportedly told Turkey that it is prepared to halt further enrichment of uranium from 3-5 percent to 20 percent (the level needed for the Tehran medical research reactor) in hope of restarting the accord reached last October in Geneva. If so, that’s a big deal, too, since Turkey and Brazil have been actively engaged in trying to broker a deal with Iran. The hard work by those two countries was disparaged by many in the United States, but it seems to have paid off.”

THIS is the only true part so far. Unfortunately, the Obama reaction to the Turkey-Brazil deal clearly show the bad faith of the US in advance of the new talks.

“The Iranians have also agreed to start talking again in September. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, who supported the October deal but failed to get backing either from Ayatollah Khamenei or from the reformist opposition for it, says that Iran will reenter talks, as CNN reports:

“Iran is ready for ‘effective cooperation’ to resolve the dispute over its nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview with state media. … ‘We said that we will talk with P5+1 as of early September, but there are some conditions,’ Ahmadinejad told Press TV on Monday. ‘One of the conditions is that others should be present in the discussions as well.’””

In other words, the deal we’re prepared to discuss is the Turkey-Brazil deal, NOT the abortive US October deal which required we trust the bad-faith US and France to give us our stuff when required.

“What does this all mean? It means that despite the huffing and puffing from some quarters, diplomacy is back on track. In both Iran and the United States, there are powerful voices being raised against the idea of accommodating the other side, so talks won’t be easy. The talks may go on for many months, if not years. But the administration, so far, seems prepared to see it through.”

This is just speculative fluff. Talks go on “for years”? They HAVE been going on for years and just as frequently being derailed by US intransigence, and then have been used as excuses to ladle on more sanctions while the US continues to move military assets into place for what is clearly seen as a long-term war.

Dreyfuss is just another person with massive cognitive dissonance about the US bad faith and the consequences of an Iran war.

The bottom line you HAVE to keep in mind at all times: The US KNOWS there IS NO Iranian nuclear weapons program. The ostensible issue is the US is demanding that Iran suspend its LEGAL uranium enrichment permanently regardless of whether Iran has a nuclear weapons program. The REAL agenda is regime change for the benefit of Israel, and a war for the benefit of the military-industrial complex. You CANNOT understand what is happening here if you ignore these facts.

One element of a deal for Iran to ship LEU to Turkey, for the 20% fuel for the TRR, is that Iran would suspend enrichment to 20%. I would expect this suspension to be permanent. Iranian enrichment to 20% was a primary cause of Russian and Chinese support for the latest UN sanctions.

I think Hague can see that making a deal that stops the enrichment to 20%, is well worth pursuing.

Achieving an agreement on the LEU, and supplying the TRR with the needed fuel, would help to build confidence. Efforts to make a larger deal are easier for the Israel lobby and the neocons to derail.

“Unlike you and James, I don’t think the US/EU etc. are interested in this deal any more, and don’t much want to talk about it.”

Not sure why you think I disagree with you on this. The fact that I don’t think anything will come of TRR talks implies, I suppose, that the US/EU at least want to talk about the TRR, but I actually don’t know that they do. My only point was that no meaningful TRR deal will come, whether they talk about the TRR or not. You separately point out that the talks might be much broader, and thus include a TRR component, and that may well be the case since that would permit bargaining chips outside the narrow TRR-negotiations sphere to be added to the mix. I’m not optimistic about even such broader talks, though their very broadness makes it far more difficult to predict their outcome.

However, if it was incorporated into a larger deal over enrichment, the AP, the outstanding issues with the IAEA, sanctions, and UNSC resolutions, or some combination thereof, then maybe it has legs. But that is where this needs to go. The time for a stand-alone deal over the TRR has gone I think.