Possible that the Condi ploy is aimed more at US hardliners than at Iran

[BurtWorm]

That's what Laura Rozen seems to think. Bolton's salvo was probably aimed back at Condi.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11595

Condi’s Play
Rice headed off the hardliners with her bold move, but will the United States and Iran ever get to the negotiating table?

By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 06.01.06

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After six years of the Bush administration often resisting calls for pragmatism and compromise from allies and home-grown foreign policy realists alike, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s dramatic announcement Wednesday that the United States would agree to join European-led talks with Iran if Tehran would suspend its uranium enrichment had the power of shock and awe -- if perhaps as short a half-life.

The day after Rice’s stunning announcement, sophisticated Iran watchers wonder if Washington and Tehran will ever get to the same negotiating table, or if hardliners have so realigned the decision-making environments in the two countries that they are set on a course towards eventual confrontation that has only just experienced an interesting speed bump.

As the diplomatic dust settles and Rice and top U.S. nuclear negotiator Nick Burns huddle for talks with their foreign counterparts at the IAEA in Vienna, one thing is sure: Not even the American diplomats who secretly hatched the announcement can guess the ultimate reaction from Iran to the bold public move yesterday to offer to come to the table on terms that Tehran may not be willing to accept.

“I don’t think the Iranians are going to accept this,” says Kenneth Katzman, an Iran expert at the Congressional Research Service. “ The U.S. didn’t offer any concrete concessions. All the U.S. said is we would come to the table. We didn’t say what we would do at the table. There’s not enough in it for Iran.”

Former Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, currently a fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Security, expressed dismay that Rice's offer to join nuclear talks also included comments about alleged Iranian support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian interference in Iraq. "If she had explicitly referred only to the nuclear issue, than maybe Iran should agree to talk," he said in an interview in Washington Thursday. "But she combined it with Lebanon, Iraq, terrorism," he added, saying those issues impinge on Iran's sovereignty.

[BurtWorm]

1. kick

[leftofthedial]

2. EVERYTHING they do is aimed at their US base

except the bits where they are actively stealing money

but all their "policy" pronouncements.

Other than their Saudi masters, they really don't care what any other country (except maybe Israel and Britain) does or thinks.