The AT goldmine - Iran, neocons and missed opportunity
The Asia Times is on fire today. Headline number three, via the Inter Press Service:
Neo-con cabal blocked 2003 nuclear talks
So intent were neo-conservatives in the Bush administration on isolating Iran that when in 2003 Tehran proposed a "grand bargain" with the US, the Swiss envoy who relayed the message received a swift rebuke from Washington. Three years later, after tens of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars, the US is only now talking to Iran over stabilizing Iraq, and Tehran's nuclear program has evolved into a major trigger for conflict. ...
The information, culled by national security policy analyst Gareth Porter, comes from a familiar source:
WASHINGTON - The George W Bush administration failed to enter into negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program in May 2003 because neo-conservatives who advocated destabilization and regime change were able to block any serious diplomatic engagement with Tehran, according to former administration officials.
The same neo-conservative veto power also prevented the administration from adopting any official policy statement on Iran, those same officials said.
Lawrence Wilkerson, then chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell, said the failure to adopt a formal Iran policy in 2002-03 was the result of obstruction by a "secret cabal" of neo-conservatives in the administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney.
"The secret cabal got what it wanted: no negotiations with Tehran," Wilkerson wrote in an e-mail to Inter Press Service (IPS). The Iranian negotiating offer, transmitted to the State Department in early May 2003 by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, acknowledged that Iran would have to address US concerns about its nuclear program, although it made no specific concession in advance of the talks, according to Flynt Leverett, then the National Security Council's senior director for Middle East Affairs.
Iran's offer also raised the possibility of cutting off Iran's support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad and converting Hezbollah into a purely socio-political organization, according to Leverett. That was an explicit response to Powell's demand in late March that Iran "end its support for terrorism".
In return, Leverett recalls, the Iranians wanted the US to address security questions, the lifting of economic sanctions and normalization of relations, including support for Iran's integration into the global economic order. ...
Read on... Other names that pop up: Doug Feith, Condi Rice, Zalmay Khalizad (the then U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, who conducted the back channel talks before they were sandbagged by Feith and company) and a terrorist group called the MEK, which the neocons hoped to use to foment "regime change" in Iran. Nice foreign policy if you can get it...
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
