(UPI) James Zumwalt - Tehran continues to drag negotiations out until it eventually possesses the nuclear arms capability the P5+1 seeks to prevent it from achieving. It is foolish to think after more than a decade of forward progress with its nuclear program - at great economic expense - Tehran would, so close to reaching its final goal, bring its nuclear arms program voluntarily to a halt. Rouhani is simply Khamenei's "closer" whose mandate is to finish the job - not to halt the nuclear program but to bring it on home to a successful weaponized conclusion. Khamenei has simply replaced Ahmadinejad's dour face and belligerent attitude with Rouhani's happy face and supposedly more cooperative attitude. Meanwhile for Iran, it is business as usual. All it needs is time. For Rouhani, it is back to the same negotiating ploys he famously bragged helped him earlier deceive the West, by practicing "intelligent diplomacy." U.S. Marine Lt.-Col. (ret.) James Zumwalt served in the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War.
2013-10-23 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive