Turkey, Iran, Brazil sign deal on nuclear fuel swap

[Tellos Athenaios]

Brazil has prided itself on being independent from but friendly with the U.S. I don't see a betrayal there.

I suspect the deal with Turkey has U.S. support. It is consistent with the administration's overall foreign policy and the silence is telling.

Even more telling if you read the first clause. Basically Brazil + Turkey got what the US failed to get: a re-affirmation of Iran's commitment to the NPT.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Basically Brazil + Turkey got what the US failed to get: a re-affirmation of Iran's commitment to the NPT.

I would reverse that argument: if Iran really wanted to show commitment to the NPT, it indeed could've taken the similar deal that was proposed last year by France, Russia and America.*


If it is a serious proposal, at the very least it shows a willingness to obstruct, just to stick it to the Americans. Not a willingness to find a workable means to swap nuclear fuel, but power politics set the agenda of Tehran.

Obama now faces the prospect of rejecting a proposal it offered in the first place, or seeing months of effort to enact new sanctions derailed.


Tehran has two goals: build a bomb, and defeat America. I think they are willing to drop either one of these goals, but not both. This new agreement works towards either goal, so a clever move. It will be interesting to see what China does. Russia has gotten more in line with the West. China will have to choose between joining the established powers, or becoming the champion of the emerging ones.



*Showing that in common parlance nobody mistakes the country for the two continents.

[Sarmatian]

I would reverse that argument: if Iran really wanted to show commitment to the NPT, it indeed could've taken the similar deal that was proposed last year by France, Russia and America.*


If it is a serious proposal, at the very least it shows a willingness to obstruct, just to stick it to the Americans. Not a willingness to find a workable means to swap nuclear fuel, but power politics set the agenda of Tehran.

Obama now faces the prospect of rejecting a proposal it offered in the first place, or seeing months of effort to enact new sanctions derailed.


Tehran has two goals: build a bomb, and defeat America. I think they are willing to drop either one of these goals, but not both. This new agreement works towards either goal, so a clever move. It will be interesting to see what China does. Russia has gotten more in line with the West. China will have to choose between joining the established powers, or becoming the champion of the emerging ones.



*Showing that in common parlance nobody mistakes the country for the two continents.

There is also a part of not losing face. Turkey, as a muslim country and by being in relative vicinity, is a perfect choice for storing and inspecting the material if need be. It can hardly be said that American have tried to be constructive with Iran in the past.

Your explanation of Iranian foreign policy (build a bomb and defeat America) made me laugh really. Defeat America? Someone would have to be crazy over there. Not even a religious fanatic covers it, I'm talking genuine, certified "cluck-cluck, gibber-gibber, my old man is a mushroom" crazy. I'm still not convinced that Tehran is building a bomb. Sorry, but previous intelligence errors concerning similar issues leave me a bit skeptical.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Your explanation of Iranian foreign policy (build a bomb and defeat America) made me laugh really. Defeat America? Someone would have to be crazy over there. Not even a religious fanatic covers it, I'm talking genuine, certified "cluck-cluck, gibber-gibber, my old man is a mushroom" crazy.

Defeat not as military defeat within a time-span of a few years. But defeat as in replacing America as the greatest power in the Middle East? Yes. Defeat as replacing America's cultural soft power? Sure. Even demographic and economical eclipse.

See, the thing is, we are fighting an assymetrical war. A war who's assymtry is best summed up as: they are trying to defeat us, we are not even aware that they are trying to do so.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE


TEHRAN -- Iran boasted yesterday it could defeat any American military action over its nuclear drive, in one of the Islamic regime's boldest challenges yet to the United States.


"You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it," said Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and among the regime's most powerful figures.


"The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable. I would advise them not to commit such a strategic error," he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Tehran. "I would advise them to first get out of their quagmire in Iraq before getting into an even bigger one," Gen. Safavi said with a grin.


"We have American forces in the region under total surveillance. For the past two years, we have been ready for any scenario, whether sanctions or an attack." Iran announced this week it had successfully enriched uranium on a small scale that could be used for nuclear reactors. The claim represented a direct challenge to the United States and the U.N. Security Council, which has demanded that Iran halt enrichment activities by April 28.


At a Friday prayer sermon in Tehran yesterday, senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad branded the U.S. as a "decaying power" lacking the "stamina" to block Iran's ambitions. And hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Agence France-Presse that a U.S. push for tough U.N. sanctions was of "no importance." "She is free to say whatever she wants," the president replied when asked to respond to comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice highlighting part of the U.N. charter that provides for sanctions backed up by the threat of military action. "We give no importance to her comments," he said with a broad smile.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1615797/posts

That is how many view the conflict. From the US 'encirclement' in Iraq and Afghanistan, to America's 'defeat' in Iraq, to economical breakdown of America/the West and economical ascendescy of emerging powers. To many hardliners, not only is Iran trying to defeat America, but many would say that Iran has been making great strides too towards defeating America these past three decades. Unlike America / the West, they have the patience and capacity to think long-term. There is a relentless drive to eclipse America in huge parts of the world, completely unknown to America - which is not an imperialistic, expansionist power, and is as such mostly oblivious to this sentiment.

[Tellos Athenaios]

China has moved already. And re-affirmation of the NPT is a bit of a cuddly couch-politics feel-good game; rather than a hard commitment to actually change something.

I think Iran will, for the time being, be content to have a two-speed negotiation device at its disposal which allows the regime to make concessions without submitting to the little & big devil directly. I think the regime would view an untouchable, unquestionable autonomy over its (civil) nuclear ambitions as the end goal. Iran works by a combination of angry state rhetoric and funding massive subsidies on petrol, and the more oil it requires for its domestic demand the more expensive this becomes.

[gaelic cowboy]

See, the thing is, we are fighting an assymetrical war. A war who's assymtry is best summed up as: they are trying to defeat us, we are not even aware that they are trying to do so.

They will miss us when were all gone Louis they see the WEST (there capitals not mine) as all the same and they go to bed at night praying they win or America exhausts itself which it possibly is. The day China rules the Great Game will change there wont be anyplace to hide for an errant regime the nukes will fly at tinpot dictators no bother.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Acquiring nuclear weapons and some form of semi-reliable delivery system is a rational choice for any nation-state. This is especially true if one of the powers that be dislike them for some reason. Nuclear technology and weapons must proliferate and will do so for more or less the same reasons the musket and bayonet did.

Eventually, a nuke will fall into the hands of some extra-national willing to use it. Then the death toll will be 300k+ not 3,000. We need to think what we can do to minimize such events and how best to respond to them.

[Husar]

Defeat not as military defeat within a time-span of a few years. But defeat as in replacing America as the greatest power in the Middle East? Yes. Defeat as replacing America's cultural soft power? Sure. Even demographic and economical eclipse.

You mean Iranian restaurants may one day be more numerous than McDonalds? And iranian goat/camel milk or whatever will take over Coca Cola(I really have no idea what drinks they have invented over there, if any)? But what about Döner? Can they ever beat Turkey?

[Husar]

*Showing that in common parlance nobody mistakes the country for the two continents.

I know, everybody does, I do if I'm not careful, but that doesn't make it right!