In the Middle East, you can always bargain.

I'm sure you've all read/heard about this by now, but Iran is apparently making rapid progress toward nuclear armament.



Another more in-depth article can be found on BBC (As my history professor always says, American networks don't report on the Middle East the way BBC does.)

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/21/iran.nuclear.documentary/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

I find this article very intriguing. Not only was Iran trying to bargain with the US and Europe to gain the freedom to pursue it's nuclear program, but apparently "Interviews with top brass from former President Bush's administration and British envoys indicate that Iran and the West had neared agreements several times in the past few years"

I wonder what those "agreements" consisted of, and what conditions prevented them from forming. Just looking at the past few decades, we know that the United States has been willing to compromise, sacrafice, and overlook much in order to preserve their objectives abroad (i.e. our Latin American puppet-dictators or our covert revolt against Mossadeq in Iran). It kind of sounds like Tehran knew how to 'play' us--what better leverage is there than offering support for our precious Operation Iraqi Freedom?

Anyway, I also found it interesting that 'Nick Burns, who was in charge of the Bush administration's State Department policy with Iran, said taking a tough approach with Iran didn't seem effective.

"We had advocated regime change. We had a very threatening posture towards Iran for a number of years. It didn't produce any movement whatsoever."'

Two pieces of good news, though: the IAEA has a less alarmist attitude toward the whole issue, saying that Iran is farther from armament than other recent reports have warned, and Tehran has indicated that diplomacy may be a possibility in the near future. What form that diplomacy will take, and what effect it will have, remains to be seen.

Obama: "There's been a lot of mistrust built up over the years, so [face-to-face talks] are not going to happen overnight."

Ali Larijani [Iranian parliament speaker], has called the Obama administraton "an exceptional opportunity for Americans"