Iran must understand that America has been treating with Iran as if it were an equal for only one reason. America was being courteous. Courtesy has limits and those limits have been reached.
President Obama has managed to shoot himself in the foot once again in his “negotiations” with Iran over their robust expansion of their nuclear ambitions.
For reasons only clear to himself, he insists that he will have an agreement with Iran by the end of the month. Unfortunately, he is willing to trade everything that’s available to him as well as everything that’s available to our partners at the negotiating table in exchange for nothing at all. Yet he is being forced by his own uncontrollable narcissism to do anything to get a couple of signatures on a piece of paper that isn’t worth enough to use as kindling for a campfire.
How can the President, if he came to his senses and realized how futile what he is doing actually is, find an off ramp from these negotiations? He can direct our Secretary of State to immediately stop divorcing the nuclear negotiations from every other behavior demonstrated by the Iranian regime.
The Iranians can begin with a declaration of neutrality and sign an agreement with Saudi Arabia and other neighboring Sunni states that they will cease any and all support for the Houthis in Yemen.
Iran must also sign an agreement with Iraq to supply Iraq and the Kurdish Peshmerga with weapons as needed, but the withdrawal of Iranian militias and regular Iranian military forces who have been inserted into Iraq under the guise of “aiding” the Shia sect that currently controls the rather ineffective military forces of Iraq. Requests for specific weapons and the quantity requested by both the Iraqis and the Peshmerga are to be forwarded to Iran through a neutral third party as well as the transshipment of such weapons to be delivered to the Iraqis and Peshmerga. This neutral third party would ideally be a nation such as Japan or India since neither country is Muslim and will not harbor latent loyalties to either Sunni or Shi’ite combatants.
Should Iran choose to refuse these to requirements, the United States and the other nations sitting at the nuclear negotiating table would advise the Iranian government that all further negotiations are at an end, and immediately all conditions regarding economic sanctions against Iran would revert to a status quo ante. Iran should also be advised that should Iran continue to ignore these demands in their continued efforts to create a Middle Eastern hegemony would immediately result in increasingly burdensome economic sanctions that will continue to be ratcheted upward.
And immediately (as in not waiting until after lunch) the United States and its negotiating partners should drive to the airport and leave. Iran must understand that America has been treating with Iran as if it were an equal for only one reason. America was being courteous. Courtesy has limits and those limits have been reached.
Jim Yardley is a retired financial controller for manufacturing firms, a Vietnam veteran and an independent voter. Jim blogs at jimyardley.wordpress.com
