As the deadline for the end of negotiations has come and gone, an agreement has been reached.
An agreement to keep talking, that is.
Though we might yet be surprised, it’s hard to imagine the US reaching a meaningful agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear ambitions.
Have you noticed that pronouncing “nucular” is no longer a gaffe since George Bush is no longer President?
Middle Eastern types tend not to make deals. Arab and Persian principles are and have long been built solidly on the shifting sands. They prefer the issue to the solution and Bill Clinton himself proved it. Clinton felt he had solved the Middle East problem in 2000 when the Arafat hit the fire:
In October of 2000, with the help of President Clinton, Palestinian Chairman Arafat and Israel’s prime minister Ehud Barak tried to reach a final agreement in Camp David. In exchange for peace, Israel offered Arafat an independent Palestinian State, 95% of the West Bank and Gaza and half of Jerusalem as described in the history page. Arafat refused and the Palestinians started their homicide/suicide bombings and their current attempt to destroy Israel.
Mr. Ben-Ami kept a diary of the peace talks with Arafat and the Palestinians at Camp David. In this interview he gives many details on how and why Arafat and the Palestinians refused peace and a state of their own. The bottom line is that the Palestinians are not interested in peace and Arafat lives within myths – practical matters are not his concern. Here are a few excerpts:
“After a time, Clinton became boiling mad and started shouting terribly. He told Abu Ala that this wasn’t a speech at the United Nations, and that the Palestinians had to come up with positive proposals of their own. Clinton shouted that no one would be able to get everything he wanted and that he too would like to serve a third term as president, but he knew that was impossible. He turned completely red and finally got up and stalked out. Abu Ala was deeply offended. From that moment, almost the only thing he did at Camp David was drive around the lawns in a golf cart.”
Clinton failed. Why?
Didn’t the Palestinians make a counterproposal?
“No. And that is the heart of the matter. Never, in the negotiations between us and the Palestinians, was there a Palestinian counterproposal. There never was and there never will be. So the Israeli negotiator always finds himself in a dilemma: Either I get up and walk out because these guys aren’t ready to put forward proposals of their own, or I make another concession. In the end, even the most moderate negotiator reaches a point where he understands that there is no end to it.”
“But there is something deeper here. Barak, as you known, is a Cartesian type. So what happened there between the cabins and the lawns of Maryland was really an encounter between a person who was looking for a rational settlement and another person who talks myths and embodies myths. And that encounter didn’t work. In retrospect, I understand that it could never have worked. I believe today that no rational Israeli leader could have succeeded in reaching a settlement with Arafat at that encounter. The man is simply not built that way.”
Why?
“Arafat is not an earthly leader. He sees himself as a mythological figure. He has always represented himself as a kind of modern Salah a-Din. Therefore, even the concrete real-estate issues don’t interest him so much. At Camp David, it was clear that he wasn’t looking for practical solutions, but was focused on mythological subjects: the right of return, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount. He floats on the heights of the Islamic ethos and the refugee ethos and the Palestinian ethos.
“Arafat’s discourse is never practical, either. His sentences don’t connect and aren’t completed. There are words, there are sentences, there are metaphors – there is no clear position. The only things there are, are codes and nothing else. At the end of the process, you suddenly understand that you are not moving ahead in the negotiations because you are in fact negotiating with a myth.
More:
Clinton himself explicitly recognized that reality when he addressed the Israel Policy Forum in New York on Sunday and urged the Palestinians not to hold out “for the impossible more.”
“You cannot expect Israel,” he said, “to acknowledge an unlimited right of return to present-day Israel.”
Arafat could and did. Moreover, he stuck to his demand knowing that if there were a “right of return” for the estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees — mostly the children and grandchildren of the original 650,000 refugees — the Jewish population would very quickly cease to constitute a majority and Israel would, quite simply, cease to exist as a Jewish state.
It was an invitation for Israelis, already coming to terms with the painful division of Jerusalem and the prospect of brutally uprooting of settlements, to commit national suicide. They declined to accept it.
Why did Arafat, deliberately and knowingly, erect that insurmountable obstacle to a deal with Israel? Why is he persisting in allowing young Palestinians to receive military training in the certain knowledge that ultimately they will be no more than sacrificial lambs? And, most intriguing, why is he being encouraged to stick to his rejectionist guns by the most powerful leaders of the Arab world?
According to some Israeli analysts, Arafat is simply incapable, psychologically or politically, of bringing himself to declare an end to the conflict with Israel.
That is the Arab/Persian mentality in a nutshell and why agreements have eluded US Presidents and everyone else for pretty much forever.
It is unlikely many remember when these talks actually began. It was in 2009 and back then Iran agreed to ship its enriched uranium to Russia for processing.
Hold that thought.
For more than five years Iran has played rope a dope with Hillary, John Kerry and Barack Obama. They have seen some sanctions lifted as a measure of good will and in return Iran has set up and attacked a mock up of a US aircraft carrier, screamed “Death to America” and declared that the eradication of Israel is “non negotiable.”
Obama continues to take it up the wazoo and what do we get in return?
More of it:
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — With a negotiating deadline just two days away, Iranian officials on Sunday backed away from a critical element of a proposed nuclear agreement, saying they are no longer willing to ship their atomic fuel out of the country.
For months, Iran tentatively agreed that it would send a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia, where it would not be accessible for use in any future weapons program. But on Sunday Iran’s deputy foreign minister made a surprise comment to Iranian reporters, ruling out an agreement that involved giving up a stockpile that Iran has spent years and billions of dollars to amass.
“The export of stocks of enriched uranium is not in our program, and we do not intend sending them abroad,” the official, Abbas Araqchi, told the Iranian media, according to Agence France-Presse. “There is no question of sending the stocks abroad.”
Today comes word that another agreement has been reached. Sort of.
The U.S., Iran and other world powers have agreed on the basic outline for a final nuclear deal to be hammered out by the end of June, but they are still debating how much of it to make public, said officials participating in the marathon talks in Switzerland.
They’ve agreed on a basic outline for a final deal. It’s the opening for a preamble to an initiation of a prelude to an inauguration.
Wow.
Neville Obama has proclaimed it the most important thing since Jesus was born. Or maybe it was since Obama was born.
As Curt has noted, this’ll be swell IF it leads to a final comprehensive deal. The odds of that happening are not great. The Iranians know how badly the feckless Obama regime wants ANY kind of deal. John Kerry is lobbying for his first Nobel Peace Prize, Obama is competing for his second well deserved honor. (/sarc)
Obama didn’t even have time to get to a golf course before the Iranians accused him of lying.
And from what we know of the agreement, it’s pathetic. It’s worthy of a community organizer.
Thursday’s agreement is vague on this score. The fact sheet says only that Iran “will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns,” but those measures aren’t detailed.
“The [military research] language appears to be one of the few Achilles heels here,” says Joseph. “It doesn’t appear as if Iran agreed to do anything specific.”
As Dan Henninger notes, this deal is irrelevant no matter what agreement is reached. Iran is not going to abide by any agreement- no more than did North Korea. Iran is currently not cooperating with the IAEA. There is no “historic” agreement. There is a beginning of a beginning. Nothing more. Now President Willy Loman will to his best to sell this used car to Congress.
Success on the world stage is not as simple as getting elected in the US. The Iranians are not as stupid as are Obama voters.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.