(New York Post) Benny Avni - Menashe Amir, director of Israel Radio's Farsi service, predicts that the mullahs indeed will present some kind of compromise at the first round of negotiations - "just enough to assure that this won't be the last round, and that the dialogue will continue." But the sole decision-maker on the issue, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has spent billions of dollars on the nuclear project; he plainly thinks that nuclear status is essential for establishing Iran as a regional, if not global, superpower. That's why many Iran-watchers reject the idea that the current pressure is enough to push him into abandoning the project. Sadly, Washington - and to a lesser degree the Europeans and everyone else - is also playing for time. That, more than any supposed shifts inside Tehran, is why we can expect "encouraging" progress reports from Istanbul.
2012-04-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive