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Obama's Briefing on Iran: Pressure, Not Diplomacy

(Washington Post) Robert Kagan - President Obama and his top advisers give a briefing to journalists this week on the state of the sanctions regime against Iran. Without making any absurd predictions about the likelihood that the regime would now be persuaded to give up its quest for a nuclear bomb, they argued that the new sanctions would at least cause the regime significant pain. However, the president did not take this as a sign that there might now be a new opportunity for diplomacy. He and his advisers disparaged recent Iranian mumblings about resuming talks as nothing new. And they displayed no eagerness to press for renewed talks or to make new dramatic gestures. The president went out of his way to note that the Iranians are masters of delay and deception. He explained in some detail why the deal Turkey and Brazil struck with Tehran was a nonstarter. He repeatedly acknowledged that the regime may be so "ideologically" committed to getting a bomb that no amount of pain would make a difference. The officials made perfectly clear that there was no new diplomatic initiative in the offing. The writer is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
2010-08-06 09:13:03
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