Baghdad dreaming

[Geee]

Washington Times:

Having apparently learned nothing from 10 years of futile negotiations with Iran, President Obama seemed perilously close late last month to yet another deal purportedly making “progress” eliminating the ayatollahs’ nuclear weapons program.

Fortunately, however, the recently concluded Baghdad talks between Iran and the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany (P-5+1) produced no substantive agreement. Nonetheless, we are assured that the meetings were successful. Why? The parties will hold a third meeting in this latest series this month, in Moscow of all places. Perhaps the fourth will be in Tehran.

Once again, we have fallen into Iran’s well-oiled trap of endless negotiations. While no harmful agreement emerged from Baghdad, “could have been worse” is not an acceptable outcome in the existential struggle against nuclear proliferation. By securing four more weeks, Iran won this round on points. It gained more precious time, as it has over the past decade, to expand its impressive nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile infrastructure.

Although sanctions advocates continue their efforts, Iran’s insouciant negotiating attitude belies their hopes. Even merely offering concessions in negotiations undercuts the sanctions’ coercive effect. And when it comes to making concessions, the West’s Iran negotiators have competition only from the West’s North Korea negotiators.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began last month agreeing with Tehran over visits to the Parchin military base, site of explosive testing critical to detonating nuclear weapons. While no document was signed and several issues remained unresolved, this “progress” purportedly showed Iran ready for serious P-5+1 talks. In fact, the deal merely demonstrated Iran’s confidence it had removed all traces of any nuclear-weapons activity at Parchin, so IAEA inspectors would uncover nothing. That confidence has been misplaced before, but Iran’s cover-up capabilities have improved over time.

The Baghdad meetings themselves were another tepid version of prior encounters, in which Iran was presented with a choice between “carrots and sticks.” Not surprisingly, Iran complained about the inadequacy of the carrots and the oppressiveness of the sticks, sending EU and U.S. negotiators home to wonder what additional carrots might bring Tehran around to compromise, “confidence-building measures” and, of course, further negotiations.

[Valin]

Fortunately, however, the recently concluded Baghdad talks between Iran and the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany (P-5+1) produced no substantive agreement.

 

Did any reasonably sane person expect anything good to come out of this?