What a surprise: Talks are going nowhere in the attempt by six world powers to persuade Iran not to build nuclear weapons. Let me tell you something about negotiations, because whether it’s business or international relations, certain principles hold true.
First, you can’t have negotiations with a party you can’t trust. Iran keeps insisting it is not trying to build nuclear weapons. No one on Earth believes they’re telling the truth. So the United States – along with Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia – are negotiating with a party that can’t be trusted. Even if you did reach a so-called deal, you couldn’t trust the other party to honor the deal. That makes the deal meaningless.
Second, you can’t enforce an agreement if you don’t take enforcement seriously in general. Iran is already banned from having nuclear weapons. The UN’s toothless International Atomic Energy Agency is supposed to be conducting regular inspections to make sure they don’t. So how effective is the IAEA? Obviously not effective at all, which is why we’re having to deal in further negotiations and, making offers to lift economic sanctions, if Iran will merely do what they are already supposed to do.
Neither side is serious here. Iran lies. And the U.S. and its allies don’t enforce existing international law. It’s no wonder these talks are going nowhere, but it’s just as well. Even if they got a deal, the deal wouldn’t mean anything.
The only way to prevent Iran from getting to bomb is to actually stop them. Maybe they should ask Benjamin Netanyahu if he has any suggestions.
