(Times of Israel) Emily B. Landau - A month ahead of the deadline for the current negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 over a comprehensive nuclear deal, the stated positions of the two sides could not be further apart. This negotiation is fundamentally not about achieving some middle ground on the nuclear issues. Rather, the onus is on Iran to adhere to international demands after it violated its NPT commitments, cheated and deceived, and lost the trust of the international community. The Obama administration has been bending over backwards since October 2013 so as not to upset Iran, with the aim of preempting any Iranian attempt to blame it of acting in bad faith. Yet despite the U.S. administration's best efforts, Iran is poised to blame it anyway. For Iran, beyond a P5+1-Iran deal which enables it to maintain the critical components of its nuclear program while still gaining sanctions relief, an impasse in the talks would be the next best outcome. Iran would emphatically claim to have negotiated in good faith, and been blocked by an uncompromising U.S. The writer is Head of the Arms Control program at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2014-06-26 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive