Iran Offered Recognition of Israel, Nuclear Cooperation bush: How Dare You

[leftchick]

Iran Offered Recognition of Israel, Nuclear Cooperation
Bush: "How dare you!"

In 2003, Iran offered to come in from the cold in a proposal to George W. Bush. Recognition of Israel within 1967 borders, pressure on Hizbullah and the Palestinians to moderate, signing the additional protocols of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, it was all there for Bush's taking.

What did Bush do?

He reprimanded the Swiss embassy, which takes care of US affairs in Iran, for daring to forward this proposal to Crawford on the Potomac.

Why?

Bush and his various constituencies (the military-industrial complex; the Christian Right; the Likudnik Lobby; and Big Oil) do not want peace with Iran.

How relieved they must have been when they managed to freeze out President Mohammad Khatami, who was trying to bring Iran back into the international community and reduce tensions.

How delighted they must have been when the world class buffoon Mahmoud Ahmadinejad succeeded Khatami and the hard liners strengthened their grasp after the Bush administration had done what it could to sabotage the Iranian reform movement.

http://www.juancole.com/

[sweetheart]

1. 67 borders

They want to keep the land they've stolen. Its no deal.

[Selatius]

9. I suspect that as well.

It appears the Israeli government is dead-set on having at least some of those colonies built in the West Bank recognized as Israeli territory. The land-for-peace formula won't work if Israel simply will not entertain the idea of removing all 250,000 settlers from the West Bank.

[BlueStorm]

2. Yeah Bushie is just itchin' for a war

As if our current one isn't enough.

Blue

[Tanuki]

3. Recommended

Thanks for posting this! I hadn't heard this. That's what I love about DU.

[leftchick]

4. It is actually common knowledge to those following the Iran "crisis"

we all know how bushco** has thwarted efforts for peace in the ME since 2000. Remember the total indifference to the bombings in Israel in 2001 exemplified in "Watch this drive"? You don't make money in peace time after all. :(

[AlamoDemoc]

5. K&R

[Tom Joad]

6. Every AIPAC meeting for the last few years has been calling for

confrontation with Iran. Diplomacy is not an option for AIPAC, they want military options first and foremost.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0412-06.htm

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the premier Israel lobby group whose annual convention last year featured a giant, multi-media exhibit on how Iran is "pursuing nuclear weapons and how it can be stopped", has also been pushing hard on Capitol Hill for legislation to promote regime change. Despite White House objections, the group has sought tough sanctions against foreign companies with investments in Iran.

"This bill has been pushed almost entirely by AIPAC," noted Trita Parsi, a Middle East expert at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) here. "I don't see any other major groups behind this legislation that have had any impact on it."

Similarly, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), whose leadership is considered slightly less hawkish than AIPAC, has taken out full-page ads in influential U.S. newspapers since last week entitled "A Nuclear Iran Threatens All" depicting radiating circles on an Iran-centred map to show where its missiles could strike.

"Suppose Iran one day gives nuclear devices to terrorists," the ad reads. "Could anyone anywhere feel safe?"

[Tennessee T]

7. The Irag Quagmire is a Religious One

The point is that there was an opening to negotiate in the direction of peace. The whole point of negotiation is to by time until the anger settles. The Israeli boundaries issue is something that could be brought to a positive conclusion for Israel if there is a negotiation. There was apparently an opening to negotiate in 2003. George Bush missed the opening because he is a totally, despicably and conveniently ignorant man.

George Bush could not negotiate his way out of a paper bag!
He can't pronounce negotiation much less know how to do it!

It is also religious bigotry. George Bush's hallucination is that the USA is a Christian Nation. Israel is the religion that preceded Christianity and from which Christianity sprung. The unspoken belief of his racist ilk is that no other religion that can claim that.

It is an unspoken bigotry against anyone that practices Hari Krishna, Buddhism, Islamic religions, on and on. It will be a long time before this nation elects a President that is not Christian or Jewish.

Its not just Bush, it is the entire human infrastructure that supports his misguided beliefs.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

8. He rejected the Taliban's offer of surrending Bin Laden to a third party

and rejected Saddam's last minute plea for a deal.

These are the wars he wants and whatever Georgie wants, Georgie gets......

[leftchick]

11. god I hope he does not get this one!

yet it appears no one in this country will stop him. :(

[flpoljunkie]

10. Thanks for posting this, leftchick. Permanent link to post below.

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/iran-offered-recognition-of-israel.html

One to bookmark.

[leftchick]

14. thank you!

It is amazing and frightening how the US press/media/"journalists" are all manipulated to write bush lies.

:(

[madrchsod]

12. cheney`s oil meeting

and the craving up of world supplies. but it`s not working the way they planned. they thought china would`t be this advanced so soon it seems china may have cut down the window of opportunity to ten years instead of 20...

[robertpaulsen]

13. Recommended! Good to remember this.

Anyone doubt this "war president" who "wakes up with war on my mind" doesn't have Iran within his sights?

[robbedvoter]

15. Same as Iraq and Afghanistan - they offered it all, several times

But W needed war, not concessions.

[slipslidingaway]

16. Thanks and another article from April on this subject with

embedded links.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_04/008657.php

[leftchick]

17. Excellent Link with great detail on what the neofreaks were up to..

Thank you!

<snip>

It started on May 6, 2003, shortly after George Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. On that day the Associated Press reported without elaboration that Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman had confirmed that "Iran has exchanged messages with U.S. officials about Iraq through the Swiss Embassy, which represents U.S. interests in Tehran. He declined to give details."

What was that all about? Last January, Flynt Leverett, who worked for Condoleezza Rice on the National Security Council, provided some initial clues:

In the spring of 2003, shortly before I left government, the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major players in Iran's power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A conversation I had shortly after leaving the government with a senior conservative Iranian official strongly suggested that this was the case. Unfortunately, the administration's response was to complain that the Swiss diplomats who passed the document from Tehran to Washington were out of line.

In February, Newsday picked up the story:

The fax was one of a series of informal soundings that emanated from Tehran in the months after the United States invasion of Iraq. Iran's envoys to Sweden and Britain also began sending signals that the regime was ready to negotiate a deal, according to a former Western diplomat closely familiar with the messages. Iran was sending messages through other back-channels as well, according to Paul Pillar, who served as the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005.

...."No one at a senior level was willing to push Iran on diplomacy," said Leverett. "Was there at least a chance that we could have gotten something going? Yes, there was a chance."

[Minstrel Boy]

18. Exactly. A moderate Iran was the last thing they wanted.

God forbid that Khatami should have succeeded.

[leftchick]

19. yes, Chaos in the ME is not their nightmare but their PLAN...

But you knew that MB. :(

<snip>

As moderate Arabs become radicalized by the war in Iraq, an even more disturbing picture unfolds. While spouting platitudes about peace, this administration, as columnist Joshua Micah Marshall asserts, is gunning for "a full-scale confrontation between the United States and political Islam." Even more to the point is Marshall's claim that, "Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare -- it's their plan."

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/04/01.html

[slipslidingaway]

20. Iran Requests Direct Talks on Nuclear Program

great buzzflash link, thanks!


snip>>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301540.html

TEHRAN, May 23 -- Iran has followed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent letter to President Bush with explicit requests for direct talks on its nuclear program, according to U.S. officials, Iranian analysts and foreign diplomats.

The eagerness for talks demonstrates a profound change in Iran's political orthodoxy, emphatically erasing a taboo against contact with Washington that has both defined and confined Tehran's public foreign policy for more than a quarter-century, they said.

...Laylaz and several diplomats said senior Iranian officials have asked a multitude of intermediaries to pass word to Washington making clear their appetite for direct talks. He said Ali Larijani, chairman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, passed that message to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, who arrived in Washington Tuesday for talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley.

Iranian officials made similar requests through Indonesia, Kuwait and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Laylaz said. American intelligence analysts also say Larijani's urgent requests for meetings with senior officials in France and Germany appear to be part of a bid for dialogue with Washington.